Convert plist <=> yaml and json => plist

This utility is designed to convert Apple plist files to yaml, or yaml files to plist. I/O is from regular files.

It can also convert json files to plist.

Installation

Prerequisites

The python ruamel.yaml module is required, which is not installed by default on Macs. You can install it with pip, which you may also need to install first. A few other things need to be updated for ruamel to install:

python -m ensurepip --user
python -m pip install -U pip setuptools wheel ruamel.yaml<0.18.0 --user

If you do not pre-install ruamel.yaml, setup.py will do it for you.

Local git repo install

git clone git@github.com:grahampugh/plist-yaml-plist && cd plist-yaml-plist
python -m pip install .

Remote git repo install

A github ssh key is required to run pip install -r requirements.txt.

requirements.txt:

-e git+ssh://git@github.com/grahampugh/plist-yaml-plist#egg=plistyamlplist

Usage

A single command can be used to convert from plist to yaml or from yaml to plist. This depends on the file suffices being predictable:

plistyamlplist -h
Usage: ./plistyamlplist.py <input-file> [<output-file>]

You can supply the input-file as a glob (*.yaml or *.json) to convert an entire directory or subset of yaml or json files. This currently only work for converting from yaml to plist. Note that you have to escape the glob, i.e. write as plistyamlplist /path/to/\*.yaml. Or, just supply a folder. The folder must be _YAML or YAML or a subfolder of one of these. Otherwise, each file can be used individually:

./plist_yaml.py -h
Usage: plist-yaml.py <input-file> [<output-file>]

./yaml_plist.py -h
Usage: yaml-plist.py <input-file> [<output-file>]

Notes:

1. With plistyamlplist.py, if you do not specify an output-file value, the script determines if the input-file is a plist, yaml or json file. If a plist file, the input-file name will be appended with .yaml for the output file. If a yaml or json file, the output file name will be the input-file name with .yaml or json removed.
2. With plist_yaml.py, if you do not specify an output-file value, the input-file name will be appended with .yaml for the output file.
3. With yaml_plist.py, if you do not specify an output-file value, and the input-file name ends with .yaml, the output file name will be the input-file name with .yaml removed.
4. With plist_yaml.py, you may have to first convert a binary plist to text format using plutil.

Examples

To convert a plist file to yaml:

plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.something.plist
./plistyamlplist.py ~/Library/Preferences/com.something.plist ~/Downloads/com.something.yaml

./plistyamlplist.py ~/Library/Preferences/com.something.plist
# this will output to `~/Library/Preferences/com.something.plist.yaml'

To convert a yaml file to a plist file:

./plistyamlplist.py ~/Downloads/com.something.yaml ~/Downloads/com.something.plist

$ ./plistyamlplist.py ~/Downloads/com.something.plist.yaml
# this will output to `~/Downloads/com.something.plist'

YAML/JSON folder

If you have a folder named YAML/_YAML, or JSON/_JSON, in your path, and you do not supply a destination, the script will determine if a corresponding folder exists in the path without YAML/JSON. For example, consider the following file:

/Users/myuser/gitrepo/YAML/product/com.something.plist.yaml

If the folder /Users/myuser/gitrepo/product exists, the converted file will be created/overwritten at:

/Users/myuser/gitrepo/product/com.something.plist

If the above folder does not exist, you will be prompted to create it.

If there is no YAML/JSON folder in the path, the converted file will be placed in the same folder.

Special handling of AutoPkg recipes

If you convert an AutoPkg recipe from plist to yaml, the following formatting is carried out:

• The different process dictionaries are ordered by Processor, Comment, Arguments (python3 only).
• The Input dictionary is ordered such that NAME is always at the top (python3 only).
• The items are ordered thus: Comment, Description, Identifier, ParentRecipe, MinimumVersion, Input, Process (python3 only).
• Blank lines are added for human readability. Specifically these are added above Input and Process dictionaries, and between each Processor dictionary.

You can also carry out reformatting of existing yaml recipes using the yaml_tidy.py script, or using plistyamlplist as in the following examples:

• Convert an AutoPkg recipe to yaml format:

  plistyamlplist /path/to/SomeRecipe.recipe

• Reformat a single yaml-based recipe:

  plistyamlplist /path/to/SomeRecipe.recipe.yaml --tidy

• Reformat a an entire folder structure containing yaml-based recipes:

  plistyamlplist /path/to/YAML/ --tidy
  # this will process all .recipe.yaml files in the folders within /path/to/YAML
  
  plistyamlplist /path/to/\_YAML/ --tidy
  # this will process all .recipe.yaml files in the folders within /path/to/_YAML
  
  plistyamlplist /path/to/YAML/subfolder/ --tidy
  # this will process all .recipe.yaml files in the folders within /path/to/_YAML/subfolder

Credits

Elements of these scripts come from:

• chaimleib/ppl
• asciidoctor/sublimetext-asciidoc
• clean_nones