bash ini parser

In some situations i like to use INI files as configuration files, as python do. But bash do not provide a parser for these files, obviously you can use a awk code or a couple of sed calls, but if you are bash-priest and do not want to use nothing more, then you can try the following obscure code:

cfg.parser () {
    IFS=$'\n' && ini=( $(<$1) )              # convert to line-array
    ini=( ${ini[*]//;*/} )                   # remove comments
    ini=( ${ini[*]/#[/\}$'\n'cfg.section.} ) # set section prefix
    ini=( ${ini[*]/%]/ \(} )                 # convert text2function (1)
    ini=( ${ini[*]/=/=\( } )                 # convert item to array
    ini=( ${ini[*]/%/ \)} )                  # close array parenthesis
    ini=( ${ini[*]/%\( \)/\(\) \{} )         # convert text2function (2)
    ini=( ${ini[*]/%\} \)/\}} )              # remove extra parenthesis
    ini[0]=''                                # remove first element
    ini[${#ini[*]} + 1]='}'                  # add the last brace
    eval "$(echo "${ini[*]}")"               # eval the result
}

And then you can parse your ini files as following:

# parse the config file called 'myfile.ini', with the following
# contents::
#   [sec2]
#   var2='something'
cfg.parser 'myfile.ini'

# enable section called 'sec2' (in the file [sec2]) for reading
cfg.section.sec2

# read the content of the variable called 'var2' (in the file
# var2=XXX). If your var2 is an array, then you can use
# ${var[index]}
echo "$var2"

Unfortunately, the cfg.parser() function do no support embedded spaces
in section names… yet

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Published:
9 February 2008 / 7:42 pm
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