Overview

INI files are still useful to provide settings to an application. Vista is not going to change this. The Windows API methods provided to read a particular value have an advantage: they follow a clearly defined search path, and following that path they take not only the INI file into account, they also check the Windows registry and the command line parameter. Furthermore, they deliver always up-to-date values.

They have a disadvantage as well: they are slow.

If you are not interested in the Windows registry and command line parameters, and if you are not changing your INI files while the application is running, then the "IniFile" class introduced in this article might attract your attention.

This class allows you to use a kind of APL-Syntax in your INI files.

Details

An entry like:

HomeFolder='C:/Windows/Appl/'

results in a string holding the path, but an entry like:

FormSize=300 400

results in a two-element-vector "FormSize" holding two Integers.

Furthermore, an entry like:

LogFolder='{"HomeFolder}Logsfiles/'

is treated in a special way: the name between the curlies is treated as the name of an alreday defined value in the same section. It is then replaced by the value of that entry.

After creating an instance from the class:

MyIni←⎕New #.IniClass 'C:/Appl/Example.ini'

you can get all information you are interested in by calling the only method "Get". Given this file "Example.ini":

[GENERAL]
MaxNoOfErrors=20
FormSize=800 1200
LogfileFlag=1
LogLevels=1 2 3 * from 1 to 9

[DIR]
Home='C:/mainfolder/'
AppFolder='{Home}appls/'
DocsFolder='{Home}docs/'
LogFileFolder='{Home}Logs/'

You can get any level of information you are interested in:

• list everything
• list a particular section
• list a particular value in a particular section

Examples

      MyIni.Get ⍬ ⍬
GENERAL  MaxNoOfErrors                    20 
GENERAL  FormSize                   800 1200 
GENERAL  LogfileFlag                       1 
GENERAL  LogLevels                     1 2 3 
DIR      Home                 C:/mainfolder/ 
DIR      AppFolder      C:/mainfolder/appls/ 
DIR      DocsFolder      C:/mainfolder/docs/ 
DIR      LogFileFolder  C:/mainfolder//Logs/ 
      MyIni.Get'General' ⍬
MaxNoOfErrors        20 
FormSize       800 1200 
LogfileFlag           1 
LogLevels         1 2 3 
      MyIni.Get'General' 'FormSize'
800 1200
      MyIni.Get'General' 'Unknown'

      ¯1 MyIni.Get'General' 'Unknown'
¯1
      ¯1 MyIni.Get'Dir' 'LogFileFolder'
C:/mainfolder/Logs/

>> [:IniFiles/Script:The Script]

Author: Kai Jaeger

CategoryDyalog CategoryScripts