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
