README

Introduction
------------

Functions for parsing INI-style file natively in bash.

The INI file format supports the following features:

Sections:   [section]
Properties: name=value
Comments:   ; comment 
            # comment

Blank lines and trailing writespace are ignored as is whitespace around 
the '=' - ie. 

   name  =  value

is equivalent to 

   name=value

Whitespace and quotes within a value are preserved (though values don't 
in general need to be quoted and will not be subject to shell parameter 
splitting)

Values can be continuted onto subsequent lines if these are prefixed with
whitespace - ie.

   name=line1
        line2

is equivalent to: 

   name = line1 line2

Properties are stored in the global _CONFIG array as ( k1 v1 k2 v2 ... ) with
keys in the format "<section>.<name>" (properties without an associated
section are stored as ".<name>". In most cases this is transparent as the
list/get commands can be used to query the data

The functionality is more or less equivalent to the Python ConfigParser 
module with the following exceptions

- Properties are allowed outside sections
- Multi-line properties are joined with ' ' rather than '\n' (due to shell
  quoting issues)

Usage
-----

Given the following ini file (test.ini) -

  ; A test ini file
  global = a global value
  [section1]
  abc = def ; a comment
  ghi = jkl
  [section2]
  xyz = abc ; extends over two lines
        def

Parse config file -

$ parseIniFile < test/t2.ini

$ listKeys
.global
section1.abc
section1.ghi
section2.xyz

$ listAll
.global a global value
section1.abc def
section1.ghi jkl
section2.xyz abc def

$ listSection section1
section1.abc def
section1.ghi jkl

$ getProperty global
a global value

$ getProperty section2.xyz
abc def

$ getPropertyVar XYZ section2.xyz && echo OK
OK

$ echo ">${XYZ}<"
>abc def<

Commands
--------

parseIniFile < file

  Parse ini file (reads from stdin) and saves data to global _CONFIG var

listKeys

  List keys present in config file in format "<section>.<property>"

listAll

  List keys and data in format "<section>.<property> <value>"

listSection <section>

  List keys and data for given section (sepcified as $1) in format
  "<property> <value>"

getProperty [name|section.name]

  Print value for given property (sepcified as $1) 
  Properties without a section can be queried directly as
  "name" (rather than ".name")

  Returns 0 (true) if property found otherwise 1 (false)

getPropertyVar <variable> [name|section.name]

  Save value for given property (sepcified as $2) 
  into shell variable (specified as $1)
  Properties without a section can be queried directly as
  "name" (rather than ".name")

  Returns 0 (true) if property found otherwise 1 (false)