In a property list, values are assigned to names. This is done as in the following example:
name = value;
Each assignment ends with a semicolon. The values in the property lists can be strings, dictionaries (lists of name-value pairs) or arrays (lists of values).
A string is a sequence of characters enclosed in quotation marks or any combination of the characters ‘a’ - ‘z’, ‘A’ - ‘Z’, ‘0’ - ‘9’ and the underline ‘_’ character.
Permitted strings are for example:
String "Sequence of characters"
Quotation marks can be used in strings enclosed in quotation marks if they are preceded by a backslash as in the following example:
"The word \"and\" consists of three characters"
A dictionary is a list of name-value pairs which starts with a left curly bracket and ends with a right curly bracket:
server = { host = localhost; tclPort = 3001; secondPort = 3002; };
Each value from a name-value pair in a dictionary can be a string, an array or another dictionary.
An array is a list of strings, dictionaries or arrays which starts with a left parenthesis and ends with a right parenthesis. The elements in a list are separated by commas. The following examples give the permitted arrays:
name1 = (An, array, with, "five", elements); name2 = ((An, array), with, (three, elements)); name3 = ( { name1 = An; name2 = array; }, { name3 = from; name4 = (two, dictionaries); } );
Property lists can contain comments. Two backslashes start a comment which covers the rest of the line:
// This is the first comment
Comments which are enclosed with data must start with the string ”/*” and end with the string ”*/” as in the following example:
/* This is the second comment */