Simple Property List Viewer

Here is “plister”, a trivially short Nu script that I use to display property lists of all formats. It requires a recent build of Nu with the NSObject readFromPropertyList: extension.

#!/usr/local/bin/nush
(set ARGV ((NSProcessInfo processInfo) arguments))
(set filename (ARGV 2))
(puts ((NSObject readFromPropertyList:filename) description))

Here’s an example showing usage:

% plister ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist
{
    AB21vCardEncoding = MACINTOSH;
    ABAIMInstantVisible = 1;
    ABAddressesVisible = 1;
    ABCardPaneFrame = "{{322, 0}, {320, 268}}";
    ABDefaultAddressCountryCode = us;
    ABDefaultLayout = 0;
    ABEmailsVisible = 1;
    ABGroupsPaneFrame = "{{0, 0}, {160, 268}}";
    ABHomePageVisible = 1;
    ABImportTipCards = 1;
    ABMembersPaneFrame = "{{161, 0}, {160, 268}}";
    ABMetaDataChangeCount = 19;
    ABNameDisplay = 0;
    ABNameSorting = 1;
    ABPeopleAlternatePaneWidth = 0;
    ABPeopleColumnsWidth = 160;
    "ABPhoneFormat-Edited" = 0;
    "ABPhoneFormat-Enabled" = 1;
    "ABPhoneFormat-PhoneFormatter" =     (
        "+1-###-###-####",
        "1-###-###-####",
        "###-###-####",
        "###-####" 
    );
    ABPhonesVisible = 1;
    ABRelatedRecordsVisible = 1;
    ABSeparateWindowsFrames =     (
    );
    ABSeparateWindowsHiddenUIDs =     (
    );
    ABSeparateWindowsUIDs =     (
    );
    ABTextSizeFixed = 1;
    "NSWindow Frame ABWindow" = "528 261 642 346 0 0 1440 878 ";
}