NSNullInPropertyList

I just had a bug where I was using NSNull in a property list and successfully writing this list to a file, but now I’m getting an “Invalid Property List” error. I searched Apple’s developer mailing lists and found that some people are saying that NSNull is a valid plist entry. I guess this is not the case.

This…

NSDictionary *dictionary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:[NSNull null], @"null", nil];
NSString *error = nil;
NSData *xmlData = 
    [NSPropertyListSerialization dataFromPropertyList:dictionary 
                                               format:NSPropertyListXMLFormat_v1_0 
                                     errorDescription:&error];
NSLog(@"\nplist: %@\nData(%i): %@\nerror: %@", dictionary, [xmlData length], xmlData, error);

Logs this…

2007-09-07 09:10:49.329 test[10629] plist: {null = ; } Data(0): (null) error: Property list invalid for format

That would be because NSNull is not a valid plist type. Apple has a full list of valid plist types and NSNull is not on it.

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