Int values are not always recognized.

[lgarron]

Repro on macOS 15.1.1:

1. Run: plistwatch | grep -v "ContextStoreAgent"
2. Open System Settings → Control Center → Menu Bar Only → Clock → Clock Options…
3. Change the "Show date" dropdown value.
4. Click "Done" and wait for the change to be written.

This writes a number to the plist, as can be verified by keeping ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.menuextra.clock.plist open in Xcode.

However, plistwatch shows e.g.:

defaults write "com.apple.menuextra.clock" "ShowDate" '2'

Running this command will clobber the int value with a string and cause it to be effectively ignored by the OS (in this case).

Although I want to note that plistwatch has saved me a lot more time than it has cost me, this particular issue took me a few weeks to really understand and debug before I could fix it for good.

[pjg11]

While the tool itself doesn't do this yet, you can add the type next to the number like so:

defaults write "com.apple.menuextra.clock" "ShowDate" -int '2'

This will get the number to be correctly recognized as an integer instead of a string.

I came across this issue while using the tool recently, so I tried implementing it (fork). It supports int, float, array and string for now.

[lgarron]

While the tool itself doesn't do this yet, you can add the type next to the number like so:

Yeah, fortunately that's not too hard if you know that something is not meant to be written as a string.

What is an issue, though, is if the command implies that it can be run as-is for non-strings.

I just checked out your fork, and it seems to work well for me! I'll probably be using that for now, thanks! 🤩

[lgarron]

I came across this issue while using the tool recently, so I tried implementing it (fork). It supports int, float, array and string for now.

On a second look, it looks like this is trying to establish the type by looking at the serialized value, which I don't think produces correct and secure results. I think using defaults read-type would be more appropriate.