msftrncs / pwshreadxmlplist

Convert XML PList to PowerShell Object

PwshReadXmlPList

PwshReadXmlPList is a project to process an XML PList document into a usable PowerShell object. The resulting object will depend on the PList document, but will commonly be composed of ordered dictionaries and/or arrays of common (basic) value types or further dictionaries or arrays.

An XML PList is a somewhat challenging document to process due to a lack of wrapping each dictionary (<dict>) item's key (<key>) and value in a separate node tree, requiring sequential sibling node processing.

ConvertFrom-Plist

The project provides one function, ConvertFrom-Plist to process an XML PList document as a pipeline input. You use typical PowerShell processes to read in the XML content of the PList, whether from a file or other sources, using the [xml] shortcut to convert the content to an XML object if not already sourced as such, prior to piping to ConvertFrom-Plist.

Parameters

• plist (-plist)

  The parameter -plist may be used in place of pipeline input.

Examples

Example uses:

. '.\PList Reader.ps1' # import the ConvertFrom-Plist function to the current session
$pList = ConvertFrom-Plist -plist ([xml](Get-Content 'somefile.plist')) # read 'somefile.plist' file and convert the result to $pList
$grammar_plist = [xml](Get-Content PowerShellSyntax.tmLanguage) | ConvertFrom-Plist # read the PowerShell TextMate syntax grammar description file and convert the result to $grammar_plist

Handling of <data>

ConvertFrom-Plist handles PList <data> objects by preparing them into byte array ([byte[]]) objects. The data that is encoded in the byte arrays depends on the application that generated the PList document. You may need to provide further processing for these objects.

Notes

• PowerShell scripting knowledge is required.
• This project was initially created to aid in processing TextMate tmLanguage grammar files, primarily for conversion to other formats, such as JSON.
• <key> is not currently handled at the root level, but this appears to be compliant with the XML PList DTD.