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Re: Apple's Address Book File Format

At 1:58 PM -0600 12/30/01, Chilton Webb wrote:
I'd like to know why there's a proprietary format here anyway. I thought with the proliferation of XML, we'd at least be able to store something as simple as our contact info in such a format.

My guess is that it uses NSArchiver and NSUnarchiver for data storage.

I was originally going to use this in the application I'm working on now because it's so darn easy, but I can't use it because the file format isn't open. If the format isn't open, that means I'd have to use a different format if I decide to support other platforms in the future. And that's just not acceptable.

Apple should either open up the archive file format (and yes, this includes the way the property list classes encode themselves) or create a new NSCoder subclass that can encode to and decode from XML (and still open up how the property list classes encode themselves).

Of course, if someone else were to release such a beast under a BSD- or LGPL-style license, that would also be cool, and I'd probably use it. But this is really something that needs to be part of Foundation.

-- Chris

--
Chris Hanson | Email: email@hidden
bDistributed.com, Inc. | Phone: +1-847-372-3955
Making Business Distributed | Fax: +1-847-589-3738
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References: 
 >Re: Apple's Address Book File Format (From: Chilton Webb <email@hidden>)



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