Bash – Fetch values from plist file on Linux

bashlinuxosxperlscripting

I have bash script which was written for OS X and now ported to Linux. I don't have access to the Linux box. The bash script would read values from plist files using the defaults read and PlistBuddy command available on OS X.

Since the Linux machine doesn't have these commands, I'm looking for workarounds. Is there library/script (Perl preferably) that helps user fetch values from plist files for a given key on a Linux machine?

I tried using sed/awk, but the output isn't reliable. I've come across scripts like plutil.pl that convert a plist file to other formats.

I have installed a Virtual machine running Ubuntu on my Mac so that I can test my changes before deploying to the actual Linux box.

Best Answer

Since .plist files are already XML (or can be easily converted) you just need something to decode the XML.

For that use xml2:

$ cat com.apple.systemsound.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>com.apple.sound.beep.volume</key>
    <real>1</real>
</dict>
</plist>
$ xml2 < com.apple.systemsound.plist
/plist/@version=1.0
/plist/dict/key=com.apple.sound.beep.volume
/plist/dict/real=1
$

You should be able to figure out the rest.

Or for Perl, use XML::Simple; (see perldoc for more) to put the XML data structure into a hash.

SSConvert Example

$ echo -e 'surname,name,age\nCarlo,Smith,23\nJohn,Doe,46\nJane,Doe,69\nSarah,Meyer,23\n' \
     > example.csv
$ unix2dos example.csv
$ ssconvert example.csv example.xlsx
$ ssconvert example.csv example.xls

Where the first ssconvert call creates a MS Excel 2007/2010 file and the second an old school Excel 2007 one.

You can check the files via file:

$ file example.csv
example.csv: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
$ file example.xls
example.xls: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 4.10,
   Code page: 1252, Create Time/Date: Tue Sep 30 20:23:18 2014
$ file example.xlsx 
example.xlsx: Microsoft Excel 2007+

You can list all supported output file formats via:

$ ssconvert --list-exporters
ID                           | Description
[..]
Gnumeric_Excel:xlsx2         | ISO/IEC 29500:2008 & ECMA 376 2nd edition (2008);
                               [MS Excel™ 2010]
Gnumeric_Excel:xlsx          | ECMA 376 1st edition (2006); [MS Excel™ 2007]
Gnumeric_Excel:excel_dsf     | MS Excel™ 97/2000/XP & 5.0/95
Gnumeric_Excel:excel_biff7   | MS Excel™ 5.0/95
Gnumeric_Excel:excel_biff8   | MS Excel™ 97/2000/XP
[..]

Unoconv Example

$ unoconv --format  xls example.csv

which creates example.xls, which is a Excel 97/2000/XP file.

Check via file:

$ file example.xls 
example.xls: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 1.0,
  Code page: -535, Revision Number: 0

You can list all supported file formats via:

$ unoconv --show
[..]
The following list of spreadsheet formats are currently available:

  csv      - Text CSV [.csv]
  dbf      - dBASE [.dbf]
[..]
  ooxml    - Microsoft Excel 2003 XML [.xml]
[..]
  xls      - Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP [.xls]
  xls5     - Microsoft Excel 5.0 [.xls]
  xls95    - Microsoft Excel 95 [.xls]
[..]

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – linux equivalent of the Mac OS X command “textutil”

Linux Bash Shell Script AWK Perl – How to Convert CSV to XLS File on Linux

SSConvert Example

Unoconv Example

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