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Introduction to HIArchive Programming Guide

Contents:

Who Should Read This Document?
Organization of This Document
See Also

HIArchive provides a convenient and standardized mechanism for flattening data objects so they can be stored in memory or on disk. Applications can use these archives whenever they need to package complex data. For example, you can use archives to:

• Store document data

• Transfer data using pasteboards, drag and drop, streams, or Apple events

• Store localization strings and user interface elements in the same package

HIArchive encodes archives in the binary property list format. You can convert archives to a text XML format using the plutil property list tool accessible from Terminal. You can also examine archives using the Property List Editor tool in /Developer/Applications/Utilities.

Who Should Read This Document?

This document is for Carbon developers who want to use, create, or manipulate HIArchives, whether to store and access proprietary data, or to edit archived data obtained from other sources. You should also read this document if you want to support the archiving of your custom HIObjects.

HIArchive is comparable to (and uses the same underlying mechanism as) the Cocoa NSKeyedArchiver/Unarchiver classes.

HIArchive is available in Mac OS X version 10.4 and later.

Organization of This Document

This document is organized into the following chapters:

• “Archiving and Unarchiving Objects” describes the basics of using HIArchives.

• “Making HIObjects Archivable” describes how to make your custom HIObjects support archiving.

See Also

In addition to this document, you may find the following documents useful:

• For a complete description of the HIArchive API, see HIArchive Reference.

• If you are not familiar with using HIViews and HIObjects, you should read HIView Programming Guide.

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