Vae property plucker.

pluck.php

<?
function vae_pluck($path, $properties, $json = true) {
    $results = array();
    $context = vae($path);

    foreach ($context as $entry) {
        $result = array();

        foreach ($properties as $key) {
            $property = $entry[$key];

            switch ($property->structure->type) {
                case 'FileItem':
                    $value = vae_data_url() . vae_file($property);
                break;
                case 'ImageItem':
                    $value = vae_data_url() . vae_image($property);
                break;
                default:
                    $value = (string) $property;

                    if (is_float($value)) {
                        $value = (float) $value;
                    } else if (is_int($value)) {
                        $value = (int) $value;
                    }
            }

            $result[$key] = $value;
        }

        $results[] = $result;
    }

    return $json ? json_encode($results) : $results;
}

print_r(vae_pluck('/settings/backgrounds[section="home"]', array('section', 'image')));
?>