Description

Professional-level sample source code in various programming languages for reading text files with error handling, using basic .ini file format parsing as an example.

• Go - read_basic_ini_file.go
• Perl5 - read_basic_ini_file.pl
• PHP - read_basic_ini_file.php
• Python 2.5+ and 3 - read_basic_ini_file.py
• Ruby - read_basic_ini_file.rb
• Bash4 - read_basic_ini_file.sh

Each file is a complete program that reads config.ini, parses it and displays the key-values.

Usage

1. Pick your preferred sample source code file according to programming language
2. Run it to see it in action
3. Then copy and paste the source code and customize for your purpose.

Demo .ini Parsing Rules

Although simple .ini parsing is done for demonstration purposes, you should use an official .ini parsing module if required.

The simple parsing rules from input lines to key-value pairs are:

• empty lines are skipped
• lines starting with comments (; or #) are skipped
• [section] lines are skipped
• values containing extra = signs are allowed
• multi-line settings are not recognized
• substitutions are not performed
• key and value strings are trimmed on left-hand and right-hand sides
• missing value default is empty string
• missing newline at EOF should not matter
• return a hash (aka dict or associative array) or hash handle of key-value pairs if possible

Sample config.ini provided for testing

<blank line>
; comment
# comment
[section]
camel=2
dog=4
 cat=3
ant = 1000
llama = 2 = a
aardvark

Example

$ ./read_basic_ini_file.pl

aardvark=
ant=1000
camel=2
cat=3
dog=4
llama=2 = a

FAQ

Q: Why?

A: It's not as simple as you might think to write reliable, portable code for file processing, especially in an unfamiliar programming language. As complete, tested sample programs, these are more useful than typical online programming answers.

Copyright

James Briggs, USA. 2019.

License

MIT License.