iOS build settings Property List Output Encoding

What's Property List Output Encoding for? If it is set to binary, does it actually开发者_开发问答 compress the plist files?

If set to binary, Xcode appears to take in any XML property lists and to save them into the application bundle as binary property lists. A binary property list has a more compact file format than an XML property list, but I don't know if you'd call it compressed.

From the Property List Programming Guide:

XML property lists are more portable than the binary alternative and can be manually edited, but binary property lists are much more compact; as a result, they require less memory and can be read and written much faster than XML property lists. In general, if your property list is relatively small, the benefits of XML property lists outweigh the I/O speed and compactness that comes with binary property lists.