NAME

       ConfigReader - Read directives from a configuration file.

DESCRIPTION

       The ConfigReader library is a set of classes which reads directives from a configuration
       file.  The library is completely object oriented, and it is envisioned that parsers for
       new styles of configuration files can be easily added.

       ConfigReader::Spec encapsulates a specification for configuration directives.  You can
       specify which directives can be in the configuration file, aliases for the directive,
       whether the directive is required or has a default value, and how to parse the directive
       value.

       Here's an example of how one directive might be specified:

            required $spec 'HomePage', 'new URI::URL';

       This defines a required directive called 'HomePage'.  To parse the value from the
       configuration file, the URI::URL::new() method will be called with the string value as its
       argument.

       If the directive name is a simple string, it will be used both to refer to the directive
       in the Perl program, and as the name in the configuration file.  You can also specify an
       alias by using an array ref.  For example, suppose you wanted to use "index" as the name
       of the directive in the configuration file, but to avoid confusion with Perl's index()
       function you wanted to refer to the directive inside the program as the "file_index".
       This will do the trick:

           ['file_index', 'index']

       You can specify any number of aliases for the directive:

           ['file_index', 'index', 'file_index', 'contents', ...]

       The parsing function or method is called to translate the value string from the
       configuration file into the value used by the program.  It can be specified in several
       different ways:

       code ref static method object method undefined

       You can also specify a default value to be used if a directive is not specified in the
       configuration file.

       string value code ref undefined

       ConfigReader::Values stores a set of directive values that have been read from a
       configuration file.  It stores a reference to an associated Spec as a member variable.
       Separating the specification from the values makes it possible to use a single
       specification for multiple sets of values.

       ConfigReader::DirectiveStyle implements a reader for a common style of configuration file.
       It is a subclass of ConfigReader::Values.  Directive names are followed by their value,
       one per line:

           HomePage   http://www.w3.org/
           Services   /etc/services