How to read Plist file from server and directly use it without creating local file?

Question

I'm working on a project and I have some setting on the server which I got through the Plist file and I want to read this Plist file without creating any local copy.

Need to store this setting in the dictionary, not in the local Plist file.

any idea how can we do this?

Sample Plist like below:

<?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>New item</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>value</key>
            <string>Data1</string>
            <key>key</key>
            <string>Tab1</string>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>value</key>
            <string>Data2</string>
            <key>key</key>
            <string>Tab2</string>
        </dict>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Let me know if required more detail on this.

Thanks in advance!

Have a look at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1072308/parse-plist-nsstring-into-nsdictionary for an Objective-C solution — mttrb, Jul 07 '17 at 06:55
Yes for ObjectiveC its fine but how can we do same in Swift3 any idea ? — CodeChanger, Jul 07 '17 at 06:57

Puneet Sharma · Answer 1 · 2017-07-07T07:07:33.240

You need to use NSPropertyListSerialization class to parse your Data from response to Dictionary.

let url:URL = URL(string: "")! // URL to fetch plist

let urlSession:URLSession = URLSession(configuration: URLSessionConfiguration.default)

urlSession.dataTask(with: url) { (data:Data?, response:URLResponse?, error:Error?) in

guard let data = data else {
    return
}

let plistDict = try? PropertyListSerialization.propertyList(from: data, options:.mutableContainers, format: nil)

guard let dict = plistDict else {
    print("Error in parsing")
    return
}

print(dict)

}.resume()

vadian · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-22T14:06:02.833

2

It's almost the same like loading and parsing JSON. Instead of JSONSerialization use PropertyListSerialization.

let urlString = "http://server.com/api"

let url = URL(string: urlString)
URLSession.shared.dataTask(with:url!) { data, _, error in
  if let error = error { print(error); return } 
  do {         
      let plistDictionary = try PropertyListSerialization.propertyList(from: data!, format: nil) as! [String:Any]
      print(plistDictionary)
  } catch {
      print(error)
  }
}.resume()

edited Jun 22 '21 at 14:06

answered Jul 07 '17 at 06:59

vadian

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great Let me try it out. Thanks for your quick answer :) – CodeChanger Jul 07 '17 at 07:00

How to read Plist file from server and directly use it without creating local file?

2 Answers2