How to decode base64-encoded <data> (CFData/NSData) property in a property list?

Posted by bantic on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by bantic
Published on 2010-04-28T15:24:13Z Indexed on 2010/04/28 15:33 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 373

Filed under:

cocoa

|

serialization

|

objective-c

I am trying to reverse-engineer a preferences file (not for any nefarious purposes, just so that I can script usage of it) that, among other things, has arrays of coordinates stored within it.

This is the salient snippet from the property list:

<dict>
  <key>$class</key>
  <dict>
    <key>CF$UID</key>
    <integer>34</integer>
  </dict>
  <key>coordArray</key>
  <data>
  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT70vS8/M7xSPwAAAD8AAAA/AAAA
  </data>
  <key>coordCount</key>
  <integer>1</integer>
</dict>

I assume that data string is an array of coordinates (based on its key name). My question is, how can I figure out what data is stored there? If I simply base64-decode that string, I get gibberish. Is there a way to decode it and cast it into whatever format it came from (NSArray, I think)?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about cocoa

MVC - Cocoa interface - Cocoa Design pattern book

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
So I started reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Design-Patterns-Erik-Buck/dp/0321535022 On chapter 2 it explains about the MVC design pattern and gives and example which I need some clarification to. The simple example shows a view with the following fields: hourlyRate, WorkHours, Standarthours… >>> More
Drag String data from My Cocoa App to Third-Party Cocoa App

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I want to drag a row from my tableview and drop it into any other NSTextField in Mac OS X 10.6, and have a string of text be dropped. Drag and drop already works within my app (between a NSTableView and an NSBrowser), but I have had no success putting any data on the pasteboard that can… >>> More
Cocoa equivalent of the Carbon method getPtrSize

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to translate the a carbon method into cocoa into and I am having trouble finding any documentation about what the carbon method getPtrSize really does. From the code I am translating it seems that it returns the byte representation of an image but that doesn't really match up with the name… >>> More
String formatting in cocoa

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi I am trying to send some text in an email from my cocoa app (by using Mail.app). Initially I tried using HTML to send properly formatted text. But the mailto: URL does not support html tags (even after setting headers) So I decided to use formatted string (left-aligning of string) This is what… >>> More
Anyone know the state of cocoa#?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Having just updated Mono to 2.6.3 (on OS X), I noticed in the installer that cocoa# 0.9.5 is also installed. However using MonoDevelop there are no cocoa# project templates by default, and I was wondering if anyone knew more about creating cocoa# apps. If you goto the cocoa# page on the Mono site… >>> More

Related posts about serialization

XML Serialization and Soap Serialization

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi I think even if we will not need interoperability between applications, and even we do not communicate with web services, it is easier to serialize using SoapFormatter than XmlSerializer because SOAP will serialize the private members by default, while XmlSerializer will work on public properties… >>> More
Binary serialization/de-serialization in C++ and C#

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello. I am working on a distributed application which has two components. One is written in standard C++ (not managed C++) and the other one is written in C#. Both are communicating via a message bus. I have a situation in which I need to pass objects from C++ to C# application and for this I need… >>> More
Insert some data at later point once serialization(binary serialization) is done for a class

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My application is written in C# and I am a newbie to C#. I am facing with a problem during serialization. The problem is as follows. There are many classes in my project and when serialization is called on one of the main class object it serializes itself and during this process many of the member… >>> More
FormatException with IsolatedStorageSettings

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a problem when serializing a Dictionary<string,Person> to IsolatedStorageSettings. I'm doing the following: public Dictionary<string, Person> Names = new Dictionary<string, Person>(); if (!IsolatedStorageSettings.ApplicationSettings.Contains("Names")) { … >>> More
Serialization of Queue type- Serialization not working; C#

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi All, Consider this piece of code: private Queue Date=new Queue(); //other declarations public DateTime _Date { get { return (DateTime)Date.Peek();} set { Date.Enqueue(value); } } //other properties and stuff.... public void UpdatePosition(...) { //other code … >>> More