dini 2.0.0-rc

This page describes various INI format similarities and differences and how dini handles them.

Due to lack of any official specification many variations have been created. Unless you have to, you should write ini that is most compatible (greatest common divisor).

Similarities

Elements that are most commonly used and are free to use:

• Sections denoted with square brackets [section]

  dini: Section names are whitespace trimmed

• Equals as key delimeter (=): key = value

  dini: Key names are trimmed and values are left-trimmed

• Comments are denoted with semicolon (;) and are allowed only on dedicated lines:

  ; comment line
  key = value ; this is part of value
  

Differences

Here’s a list of things that vary between parsers:

• Colon as key delimeter

  Currently not supported. This one is pretty rare and such configuration files should be called ini anymore.

• Hashes for comments

  Supported, but can be disabled. This one is pretty common and not so intrusive.

• Multiline strings

  Supported, but can be disabled. Allows you to define values as such:

  key="""
      multiline value
  """
  

• Quoted keys

  Supported. Quoted keys are used by Windows Registry export.

• Escape sequences

  Supported, but can be disabled.

• Escaped line feeds

  Supported. You can escape new lines in values to ignore them. For example:

  # the value below does not contain newline!
  name=this is a very \
   long value