Reading/Writing an Ini File

Reading/writing an INI file

The creators of the .NET framework want you to use XML-based config files, rather than INI files. So no, there is no built-in mechanism for reading them.

There are third party solutions available, though.

• INI handlers can be obtained as NuGet packages, such as INI Parser.
• You can write your own INI handler, which is the old-school, laborious way. It gives you more control over the implementation, which you can use for bad or good. See e.g. an INI file handling class using C#, P/Invoke and Win32.

How to read and write INI file with Python3?

This can be something to start with:

import configparser

config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read('FILE.INI')
print(config['DEFAULT']['path'])     # -> "/path/name/"
config['DEFAULT']['path'] = '/var/shared/'    # update
config['DEFAULT']['default_message'] = 'Hey! help me!!'   # create

with open('FILE.INI', 'w') as configfile:    # save
    config.write(configfile)

You can find more at the official configparser documentation.

Reading from an INI file

Going to the Pinvoke.Net Web site and modifying their example worked, their Function declaration is different.

Modified Example

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports System.Text
Module Module1
    Private Declare Auto Function GetPrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" (ByVal lpAppName As String, _
            ByVal lpKeyName As String, _
            ByVal lpDefault As String, _
            ByVal lpReturnedString As StringBuilder, _
            ByVal nSize As Integer, _
            ByVal lpFileName As String) As Integer

    Sub Main()

        Dim res As Integer
        Dim sb As StringBuilder

        sb = New StringBuilder(500)
        res = GetPrivateProfileString("testApp", "KeyName", "", sb, sb.Capacity, "c:\temp\test.ini")
        Console.WriteLine("GetPrivateProfileStrng returned : " & res.ToString())
        Console.WriteLine("KeyName is : " & sb.ToString())
        Console.ReadLine();

    End Sub
End Module

How to read from an .ini file?

Assuming you are using Windows, you can work this way:

First include Windows.h

#include <Windows.h>

On your function, create a LPCSTR (heh!? Really? Yeah.)

LPCSTR ini = "C:\\config.ini";

And call GetPrivateProfileString:

char returnValue[100];
GetPrivateProfileString("states", "title", 0, returnValue, 100, ini);

Reading from an ini file with no Sections

Reading the settings you've shown is fairly straightforward and a ReadLine with a String.Split on a space will do (or will be what is happening at the lowest level).

However, are there settings with more (or less) than one "word" on the RHS (no harder because String.Split can stop at the first space)?

Are there blank lines or comments and what is the comment markers?

How To Read and Write to a INI file in Python

"Is there a way to only rewrite the value I am changing?" No, because it's a text file. You can only do a selective rewrite when you know that the thing you're writing will be exactly the same length as the thing you're replacing. That's not generally the case with text files, and they're almost never treated that way.

I'd do only a small re-organization of this function to remove redundancy:

def read_or_write_file(self, file, section, passed_option = None,
                      value = None, read = True):

    config = ConfigParser.RawConfigParser()
    with open(file) as configfile:
        config.readfp(configfile)    

    if read:
        options = config.options(section)

        for option in options:
            file_settings[option] = config.get(section, option)

    else:
        config.set(section, passed_option, value)

        with open(file, 'w') as configfile:
            config.write(configfile)

Read/Write INI file

You can use some of the kernel32 functions.

Private Declare Auto Function GetPrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" (ByVal lpAppName As String, _
        ByVal lpKeyName As String, _
        ByVal lpDefault As String, _
        ByVal lpReturnedString As StringBuilder, _
        ByVal nSize As Integer, _
        ByVal lpFileName As String) As Integer

This will let you read an ini file

Dim sb As StringBuilder

sb = New StringBuilder(500)
GetPrivateProfileString("IMPORT-1", "SETTINGS", "", sb, sb.Capacity, "test.ini")

How to read and write to an ini file with PHP

The PEAR Config_Lite package can do almost all the work (both reading and writing) for you super-easily. Check it out here: http://pear.php.net/package/Config_Lite

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