This python library allows to parse Apple's binary property list format in the version bplist17 into a JSON representation and vice versa.
This is based on python's plistlib which does this for version bplist00.
Additionally, the JSON representation can contain type information. We also provide command-line tools to convert between such binary and JSON files.
The type information in the typed JSON representation corresponds to the type information in the binary format as follows:
(hexadecimal byte representaion in bplist binary - corresponding identifiers in JSON):
1X - "int",
22 - "float" (2^2 = 4 bytes),
23 - "double" (2^3 = 8 bytes),
4X - "data.hexstring" (value was parsed as hexstring),
- "data.bplist00" if data contains a bplist00 which was parsed as JSON,
- "data.bplist17" if data contains a bplist17 which was parsed as JSON,
6X - "string_utf16le",
7X - "string_ascii",
A0 - "array",
B0/C0 - "bool" (value true/false),
D0 - "dict",
E0 - "null",
FX - "uint"
Type 8X (address reference) does not have a corresponding type in the JSON format, since the objects are dereferenced by the parser.
The nibble X represents the length of the data if it has a value below 0xF. If it is 0xF, an integer containing the length follows (e.g. 11 20 for the length 0x20).
The length is specified in bytes, except for UTF-16LE strings, where the length is specified as number of characters (aka half of the byte length).
For arrays and dictionaries, the byte A0 or D0 is followed by the end address of the last byte of the array/dictionary (8 bytes, little-endian).
The unknown types 0X, 3X, 5X and 9X (which may or may not exist) are not implemented by the parser, hence they have no no corresponding types in the JSON output.