NSTask plutil unrecognized option

Question

I'm trying to use NSTask to convert a binary plist to xml, although run into an error that I don't quite understand. If I take the command NSTask fails on and copy it to the command line it works just fine. Hopefully someone can tell me what is wrong.

NSString *defaultPath = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Library/Preferences/com.defaults.plist"];

task = [[NSTask alloc] init];
[task setLaunchPath: @"/usr/bin/plutil"];

NSArray *arguments;
arguments = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"-convert xml1", defaultPath, nil];

// using `@"-convert", "xml1", defaultPath, nil` doesn't seem to work either.

[task setArguments: arguments];

NSPipe *pipe;
pipe = [NSPipe pipe];
[task setStandardOutput: pipe];

NSFileHandle *file;
file = [pipe fileHandleForReading];

[task launch];

[task waitUntilExit];
[task release];

NSLog

/usr/bin/plutil (
    "-convert xml1",
    "/Users/Mira/Library/Preferences/com.defaults.plist"
)
unrecognized option: -convert xml1

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 09 '13 at 02:25

the way NSTask formats its commands for the shell can be a bit tricky. Here is a suggestion that should help.

[task setLaunchPath:@"/bin/bash"];

NSMutableArray *commandLine = [NSMutableArray new];
[commandLine addObject:@"-c"];
[commandLine addObject:@"/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1"];
[commandLine addObject:defaultPath];

If this doesn't work, then make a long string of the plutil command and the file path and add it to the command line as the second object after -c.

ex:

NSString *cmd = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1 %@",defaultPath];

then add it to the array

[task setLaunchPath:@"/bin/bash"];

NSMutableArray *commandLine = [NSMutableArray new];
[commandLine addObject:@"-c"];
[commandLine addObject:cmd];

hope that helps. best of luck!

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 15 '13 at 09:29

0

"-convert" and "xml1" need to be seperate strings

answered Apr 15 '13 at 09:29

Jeff Laing

913
7
13

I stand by my answer. The comment in the code does not have an @ in front of @"xml1". As such, you probably passed the wrong data type in (passing char* instead of NSString*). – Jeff Laing May 02 '13 at 08:28

NSTask plutil unrecognized option

2 Answers2