Plist to JSON Converter
Parse an Apple XML property list into readable typed JSON.
Read XML property lists as JSON
XML property lists use alternating key and value elements inside dictionaries, which makes casual text replacement unreliable. This converter tokenizes the XML into a node tree, verifies balanced tags, locates the plist root value, and recursively maps dict, array, string, integer, real, true, false, date, and data elements into JSON-compatible values.
The default plist becomes a JSON object with name equal to Ada and count equal to the number 2. Arrays preserve order, booleans remain booleans, and XML entities are decoded in text. Malformed dictionaries, unsupported element names, invalid numbers, and mismatched tags produce readable errors instead of partial output.
A structured parser with explicit errors
Dates and data are returned as strings because JSON has no native date or binary types. The parser expects an XML plist, not Apple binary plist bytes, and it intentionally avoids loading external doctypes or resources. Everything is parsed in your browser, so configuration content stays local. Confirm any date parsing or base64 decoding required by the application that consumes the JSON.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this parse binary plist files?
No. It accepts XML property lists; binary plist decoding is a different byte-level format.
How are plist dates and data represented?
They are preserved as JSON strings because JSON itself has no date or binary scalar type.
Will malformed XML produce partial JSON?
No. Unclosed or mismatched tags and malformed dictionary pairs return an explicit parse error.
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