NAME

       Prima::IniFile - support of Windows-like initialization files

DESCRIPTION

       The module contains a class, that provides mapping of text initialization file to a two-
       level hash structure. The first level is called sections, which groups the second level
       hashes, called items.  Sections must have unique keys. The items hashes values are arrays
       of text strings. The methods, operated on these arrays are get_values, set_values,
       add_values and replace_values.

SYNOPSIS

               use Prima::IniFile;

               my $ini = create Prima::IniFile;
               my $ini = create Prima::IniFile FILENAME;
               my $ini = create Prima::IniFile FILENAME,
                                               default => HASHREF_OR_ARRAYREF;
               my $ini = create Prima::IniFile file => FILENAME,
                                               default => HASHREF_OR_ARRAYREF;

               my @sections = $ini->sections;
               my @items = $ini->items(SECTION);
               my @items = $ini->items(SECTION, 1);
               my @items = $ini->items(SECTION, all => 1);

               my $value = $ini-> get_values(SECTION, ITEM);
               my @vals = $ini-> get_values(SECTION, ITEM);
               my $nvals = $ini-> nvalues(SECTION, ITEM);

               $ini-> set_values(SECTION, ITEM, LIST);
               $ini-> add_values(SECTION, ITEM, LIST);
               $ini-> replace_values(SECTION, ITEM, LIST);

               $ini-> write;
               $ini-> clean;
               $ini-> read( FILENAME);
               $ini-> read( FILENAME, default => HASHREF_OR_ARRAYREF);

               my $sec = $ini->section(SECTION);
               $sec->{ITEM} = VALUE;
               my $val = $sec->{ITEM};
               delete $sec->{ITEM};
               my %everything = %$sec;
               %$sec = ();
               for ( keys %$sec) { ... }
               while ( my ($k,$v) = each %$sec) { ... }

METHODS

       add_values SECTION, ITEM, @LIST
           Adds LIST of string values to the ITEM in SECTION.

       clean
           Cleans all internal data in the object, including the name of the file.

       create PROFILE
           Creates an instance of the class. The PROFILE is treated partly as an array, partly as
           a hash. If PROFILE consists of a single item, the item is treated as a filename.
           Otherwise, PROFILE is treated as a hash, where the following keys are allowed:

           file FILENAME
               Selects name of file.

           default %VALUES
               Selects the initial values for the file, where VALUES is a two-level hash of
               sections and items. It is passed to read, where it is merged with the file data.

       get_values SECTION, ITEM
           Returns array of values for ITEM in SECTION. If called in scalar context, and there is
           more than one value, the first value in list is returned.

       items SECTION [ HINTS ]
           Returns items in SECTION. HINTS parameters is used to tell if a multiple-valued item
           must be returned as several items of the same name; HINTS can be supplied in the
           following forms:

           items( $section, 1 ) items( $section, all => 1);

       new PROFILE
           Same as create.

       nvalues SECTION, ITEM
           Returns number of values in ITEM in SECTION.

       read FILENAME, %PROFILE
           Flushes the old content and opens new file. FILENAME is a text string, PROFILE is a
           two-level hash of default values for the new file. PROFILE is merged with the data
           from file, and the latter keep the precedence.  Does not return any success values
           but, warns if any error is occurred.

       replace_values SECTION, ITEM, @VALUES
           Removes all values form ITEM in SECTION and assigns it to the new list of VALUES.

       section SECTION
           Returns a tied hash for SECTION. All its read and write operations are reflected in
           the caller object, which allows the following syntax:

                   my $section = $inifile-> section( 'Sample section');
                   $section-> {Item1} = 'Value1';

           which is identical to

                   $inifile-> set_items( 'Sample section', 'Item1', 'Value1');

       sections
           Returns array of section names.

       set_values SECTION, ITEM, @VALUES
           Assigns VALUES to ITEM in SECTION. If number of new values are equal or greater than
           the number of the old, the method is same as replace_values. Otherwise, the values
           with indices higher than the number of new values are not touched.

       write
           Rewrites the file with the object content. The object keeps an internal modification
           flag under name "{changed}"; in case it is "undef", no actual write is performed.

AUTHORS

       Anton Berezin, <tobez@plab.ku.dk>

       Dmitry Karasik <dmitry@karasik.eu.org>