NAME

       Config::INI - simple .ini-file format

VERSION

       version 0.021

SYNOPSIS

       Config-INI comes with code for reading .ini files:

         my $config_hash = Config::INI::Reader->read_file('config.ini');

       ...and for writing ".ini" files:

         Config::INI::Writer->write_file({ somekey => 'somevalue' }, 'config.ini');

       See Config::INI::Writer and Config::INI::Reader for more examples.

GRAMMAR

       This section describes the format parsed and produced by Config::INI::Reader and ::Writer.
       It is not an exhaustive and rigorously tested formal grammar, it's just a description of
       this particular implementation of the not-quite-standardized "INI" format.

         ini-file   = { <section> | <empty-line> }

         empty-line = [ <space> ] <line-ending>

         section        = <section-header> { <value-assignment> | <empty-line> }

         section-header = [ <space> ] "[" <section-name> "]" [ <space> ] <line-ending>
         section-name   = string

         value-assignment = [ <space> ] <property-name> [ <space> ]
                            "="
                            [ <space> ] <value> [ <space> ]
                            <line-ending>
         property-name    = string-without-equals
         value            = string

         comment     = <space> ";" [ <string> ]
         line-ending = [ <comment> ] <EOL>

         space = ( <TAB> | " " ) *
         string-without-equals = string - "="
         string = ? 1+ characters; not ";" or EOL; begins and ends with non-space ?

       Of special note is the fact that no escaping mechanism is defined, meaning that there is
       no way to include an EOL or semicolon (for example) in a value, property name, or section
       name.  If you need this, either subclass, wait for a subclass to be written for you, or
       find one of the many other INI-style parsers on the CPAN.

       The order of sections and value assignments within a section are not significant, except
       that given multiple assignments to one property name within a section, only the final one
       is used.  A section name may be used more than once; this will have the identical meaning
       as having all property assignments in all sections of that name in sequence.

DON'T FORGET

       The definitions above refer to the format used by the Reader and Writer classes bundled in
       the Config-INI distribution.  These classes are designed for easy subclassing, so it
       should be easy to replace their behavior with whatever behavior your want.

       Patches, feature requests, and bug reports are welcome -- but I'm more interested in
       making sure you can write a subclass that does what you need, and less in making Config-
       INI do what you want directly.

THANKS

       Thanks to Florian Ragwitz for improving the subclassability of Config-INI's modules, and
       for helping me do some of my first merging with git(7).

ORIGIN

       Originaly derived from Config::Tiny, by Adam Kennedy.

AUTHOR

       Ricardo Signes <rjbs@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2007 by Ricardo Signes.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
       the Perl 5 programming language system itself.