Property List XML Tags

When Property List Services converts a collection of Core Foundation objects into an XML property list, it wraps the plist using the document type tag <plist> . The tags used for the Core Foundation data types are listed in Table 1.

Table 1   Core Foundation Types with XML Equivalents
CF type XML tag
CFString <string>
CFNumber <number>
CFDate <date>
CFBoolean <boolean>
CFData <data>
CFArray <array>
CFDictionary <dict>

When encoding the contents of a CFDictionary, the tag <key> is used for dictionary keys, and the tag <data> is used for the key's value. See Listing 4 for an example XML data generated from a property list.

The XML data format is documented here strictly for help in understanding Property List Services and as a debugging aid. These tags may change in future releases so you shouldn't rely on them directly. It is not safe to edit the XML data by hand unless you are very familiar with XML syntax. If you want to modify the contents of a property list saved on disk as XML data, use the PropertyListEditor application.


© 1999 Apple Computer, Inc. (Last Updated 02 November 99)