README

libconfini {#readme}
====================

**libconfini** is the ultimate and most consistent INI file parser library
written in C. Originally designed for parsing configuration files written by
other programs, it focuses on standardization and parsing exactness and is at
ease with almost every type of file containing key/value pairs.

The library is fast and suitable for embedded systems. Its algorithms are
written from scratch and do not depend on any external library, except for the
C standard headers **stdio.h**, **stdlib.h**, **stdbool.h** and **stdint.h**
(and for extreme platforms the code [can be also compiled as “bare metal”][1],
with few or no strings attached to the C Standard Library).

Rather than storing the parsed data, **libconfini** gives the developer the
freedom to choose what to do with them through a custom callback invoked for
each INI node read. The API has been designed to be powerful, flexible and
simple to use.

With **libconfini** you will find in INI files the same serialization power
that you would normally find in other heavily structured formats (such as JSON,
YAML, TOML), but with the advantage of using the most human-friendly
configuration format ever invented (thanks to their informal status, INI files
are indeed more fluid, expressive and human-friendly than formats explicitly
designed with the same purpose, such as YAML and TOML). The library's main goal
is to be uncommonly powerful in the most tedious and error-prone task when
parsing a text file in C: string handling. Thanks to this, the programmer is
left free to organize the content parsed as (s)he pleases, assisted by a rich
set of fine-tuning tools.


Features
--------

* Typed data support (each value can be parsed as a boolean, a number, a
  string, an array)
* Single/double quotes support in _Bash style_ (i.e. quotes can be opened and
  closed multiple times within the same value)
* Multi-line support
* Comment support
* Disabled entry support
* INI sectioning support (single-level sectioning, as in `[foo]`; absolute
  nesting, as in `[foo.bar]`; relative nesting, as in `[.bar]`)
* Automatic sanitization of values, key names and section paths
* Comparison functions designed just for INI source code (capable, for example,
  to recognize the equality between <code>"Hello world"</code> and
  <code>"He"l'lo' world</code>, or between <code>foo bar</code> and
  <code>foo&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;bar</code>)
* Callback pattern
* Thread-safety (each parsing process is fully reentrant)
* Highly optimized code (single memory allocation for each parsing, heuristic
  programming, optimization flags)
* Function modularity (each public function is independent from all other
  public functions)
* K.I.S.S. (no public functions are automatically invoked during the parsing --
  for example, not even single/double quotes are automatically removed from
  values unless the developer explicitly decides to use the formatting
  functions provided by the API)
* Robust and cross-platform file access (UTF-8 support; protection against null
  byte injection; support of all code representations of new lines -- i.e.
  ubiquitous support of Classic Mac OS' `CR`, Unix' `LF`, Windows' `CR`+`LF`,
  RISC OS Open's `LF`+`CR`)


Sample usage
------------

log.ini:

`````````````````````````````````````` ini
[users]
have_visited = ronnie, lilly82, robrob

[last_update]
date = 12.03.2017
``````````````````````````````````````

example.c:

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` c
#include <confini.h>

static int callback (IniDispatch * disp, void * v_other) {

  #define IS_KEY(SECTION, KEY) \
    (ini_array_match(SECTION, disp->append_to, '.', disp->format) && \
    ini_string_match_ii(KEY, disp->data, disp->format))

  if (disp->type == INI_KEY) {

    if (IS_KEY("users", "have_visited")) {

      /* No need to parse this field as an array right now */
      printf("People who have visited: %s\n", disp->value);

    } else if (IS_KEY("last_update", "date")) {

      printf("Last update: %s\n", disp->value);

    }

  }

  #undef IS_KEY

  return 0;

}

int main () {

  if (load_ini_path("log.ini", INI_DEFAULT_FORMAT, NULL, callback, NULL)) {

    fprintf(stderr, "Sorry, something went wrong :-(\n");
    return 1;

  }

  return 0;

}
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Output:

````````````````````````````````````````````````
People who have visited: ronnie, lilly82, robrob
Last update: 12.03.2017
````````````````````````````````````````````````

If you are using C++, under `examples/cplusplus/map.cpp` you can find a snippet
for storing an INI file into a class that relies on a `std::unordered_map`
object.

For more details, please read the [Library Functions Manual][2] (`man
libconfini`) -- a standalone HTML version is available [here][3] -- and the
manual of the header file (`man confini.h`). The code is available on
[GitHub][4] under [madmurphy/libconfini][5]).


Installation
------------

Despite the small footprint, **libconfini** has been conceived as a shared
library (but it can be used as a static library as well). An automatic list of
the distributions that ship the library already compiled is available [here][6].

If a pre-compiled package for your platform is not available, on most Unix-like
systems it is possible to install **libconfini** using the following common
steps:

`````````````````` sh
./configure
make
make install-strip
``````````````````

If the `strip` utility is not available on your machine, use `make install`
instead (it will produce larger binaries)

For a minimum installation without development files (i.e. static libraries,
headers, documentation, examples, etc.) use `./configure --disable-devel`.

If the `configure` script is missing you need to generate it by running the
`bootstrap` script. By default, `bootstrap` will also run the `configure`
script immediately after having generated it, so you may type the `make`
command directly after `bootstrap`. To list different options use `./bootstrap
--help`.

If you are using **Microsoft Windows**, a batch script for compiling
**libconfini** with [**MinGW**][7] without **Bash** is available
(`mgwmake.bat`). If you are interested in using **GNU Make** for compiling
**libconfini**, you can integrate **MinGW** with [**MSYS**][8], or you can
directly use [**MSYS2**][9] and [its official port][10] of the library.
Alternatively, [an unofficial port][11] of **libconfini** for [**Cygwin**][12]
is available.

For further information, see [INSTALL][13].


Bindings
--------

[Danilo Spinella][14] maintains [a D binding package][15] of **libconfini**.


Free software
-------------

This library is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GPL license version 3 or any later version. See [COPYING][16]
for details.


  [1]: https://madmurphy.github.io/libconfini/html/baremetal.html
  [2]: https://madmurphy.github.io/libconfini/html/libconfini.html
  [3]: https://madmurphy.github.io/libconfini/manual.html
  [4]: https://github.com/
  [5]: https://github.com/madmurphy/libconfini
  [6]: https://repology.org/project/libconfini/versions
  [7]: http://www.mingw.org/
  [8]: http://www.mingw.org/wiki/MSYS
  [9]: https://www.msys2.org/
  [10]: https://packages.msys2.org/base/mingw-w64-libconfini
  [11]: https://github.com/fd00/yacp/tree/master/libconfini
  [12]: https://www.cygwin.com/
  [13]: https://madmurphy.github.io/libconfini/html/install.html
  [14]: https://danyspin97.org/
  [15]: https://github.com/DanySpin97/libconfini-d
  [16]: https://github.com/madmurphy/libconfini/blob/master/COPYING