plistutil - Man Page

Convert a plist FILE from binary to XML format or vice-versa

Synopsis

plistutil [Options] [-i FILE] [-o FILE]

plistutil allows to convert a file in Property List format from binary to XML format or vice-versa.

-i, --infile FILE: Input FILE to convert from. If this argument is omitted or - is passed as filename, plistutil will read from stdin.
-o, --outfile FILE: Output FILE to convert to. If this argument is omitted or - is passed as filename, plistutil will write to stdout.
-f, --format [bin|xml]: Force output format, regardless of input type. This is useful if the input format is not known, but the output format should always be in a specific format (like xml).
-h, --help: Prints usage information.
-d, --debug: Enabled extended debug output.
-v, --version: Print version information

plistutil -i test.plist -o out.plist: Convert test.plist and write to out.plist. If test.plist is in XML format, out.plist will be in binary format. If test.plist is in binary format, out.plist will be in XML format.
plistutil -i test.plist -o out.plist -f bin: Same as before, but the output will always be in binary format.
plistutil -i test.plist -f xml: Print test.plist as XML plist, regardless of the input format.
plistutil -i test.plist -f xml -o -: Same as before.
cat test.plist |plistutil -f xml: Take plist data from stdin - piped via cat - and write the output as XML to stdout.

Zach C.

Martin Szulecki

Nikias Bassen