INI Cheat Sheet | JR Academy

title: INI date: 2022-12-30 09:51:44 background: bg-[#6d94c7] tags: categories: - Programming intro: | This is a quick reference cheat sheet for understanding and writing INI-format configuration files. plugins: - copyCode

Getting Started

Introduction

• INI is a configuration file with a fixed standard format
• Base elements are keys or properties
• Each key consists of a name and a value, separated by an equal sign (=)
• key name is displayed to the left side of the equals sign
• Equal sign (=) and semicolon (;) are reserved characters
• INI configuration method comes from the MS-DOS operating system

Now an informal standard for many configurations, other operating systems may use .conf or .cfg as a suffix

Example

; Here are the comments
[owner]
name=John Doe
organization=Acme Products

[database]
; Here are the comments
server=192.0.2.42
port=143
file="acme payroll.dat"

[section.subsection]
foo = bar

Comments

Comment (;)

; This is the comment text and will be ignored

Comment (#)

# Here is the comment text, ⚠️ Some compilers support it

Comments after a line (;,#) (not standard)

var = a ; this is an inline comment
foo = bar # this is another inline comment

Comments must appear alone on lines in some cases

Sections

• The name appears on a line by itself
• Names are enclosed in square brackets [ and ]
• No explicit section end delimiter
• End at the next section declaration or at the end of the file
• Section and attribute names are case insensitive

[section]
key1 = a
key2 = b

The same as JSON below 👇

{
	"section": {
		"key1": "a",
		"key2": "b"
	}
}

Nesting (supported by some parsers)

[section]
domain = cheatsheets.zip
[section.subsection]
foo = bar

The same as JSON below 👇

{
  "section": {
    "domain": "cheatsheets.zip"
    "subsection": {
      "foo": "bar"
    }
  }
}

Nest to previous section (shorthand)

[section]
domain = cheatsheets.zip
[.subsection]
foo = bar

Escape character

Array

[section]
domain = cheatsheets.zip
array[]=first value
array[]=second value

The same as JSON below 👇

{
	"section": {
		"domain": "cheatsheets.zip",
		"array": ["first value", "second value"]
	}
}

Interpreter

• @go-ini/ini (golang)
• @npm/ini (nodejs)
• @zonyitoo/rust-ini (rust)
• @rxi/ini (c)
• @pulzed/mINI (c++)
• @rickyah/ini-parser (c#)
• @Enichan/Ini (c#)

See also

• INI file configuration(wikipedia.org)