On my way to the deli I wondered if there is a plist parser written in PHP. Why would one want such a thing and what the hell is a plist you ask?

To answer the second question first, a plist (property list) is an XML format (created by Apple I believe) that is used “to store, organize and access standard data types” (definition from Apple’s site). Generally, it’s used in Mac OS X to store user preferences and other info that an application might need. If you use Mac OS X, look in ~/Library/Preferences to see examples.

But why would we want a PHP parser for this stuff? So you can parse plists anywhere that’s why. Why would you want to parse plists anywhere? I have one very specific application in mind. I want to parse my NetNewsWire sync data and display it somewhere on this blog.

When you sync NetNewsWire 2.0 via FTP it stores the state of your feed reading in plist format on your server. If I had a PHP parser I could share my real feeds in a sort-of blogroll deal. I’m suspicious that some people who have HUGE blogrolls don’t really read them all. If I used NetNewsWire’s sync data I could share my REAL daily feed reading habits.

I found one written in Python, but no PHP. permanent link to this post