NAME

       md_src_plugins_ni_README - README

       • infos = Information about ni plugin is in keys below

       • infos/author = Markus Raab elektra@libelektra.org

       • infos/licence = BSD

       • infos/needs =

       • infos/provides = storage

       • infos/placements = getstorage setstorage

       • infos/description = Reads and writes the nickel ini format

       This  plugin  uses  the  nickel  library  in  order to read/write metakeys in the nickel ini format. It's
       purpose is to be used in the spec-namespace or when any metadata should be stored.

       For ini files for applications, e.g. smb.conf you should prefer the ini plugin.

   Usage
       To mount a ni plugin you can simply use:

       kdb mount file.ini spec/ni ni

       The strength and usage of this plugin is that  it  supports  arbitrary  meta  data  and  is  still  human
       readable. E.g.

       [key]
       meta=foo

       creates the key with meta data key meta and meta data value foo:

       $ kdb getmeta user/ni/key meta
       foo

       the meta data for the parent key has following syntax:

       []
       meta=foo

       Line continuation works by ending the line with \\.

       Exporting a KeySet to the nickle format:

       kdb export spec/ni ni > example.ni

       For  in-detail  explanation  of  the  syntax  (nested  keys are not supported by the plugin, however) see
       nickel-1.1.0/include/bohr/ni.h

   Limitations
       • Supports most KeySets, but kdb test currently reports some errors (likely because of the UTF-8 handling
         happening within ni).

       • Keys have a random order when written out.

       • No comments are preserved, they are simply removed.

       • Parse errors simply result to ignoring (and removing) these parts.

   Nickel
       This plugin is based on the Nickel Library written by author: charles@chaoslizard.org

       Nickel (Ni) has its strength in building up a hierarchical recursive Node structure which is perfect  for
       parsing  and generating ini files. With them arbitrary deep nested hierarchy are possible, but limited in
       a keyname of a fixed size.

       The API of nickel is very suited for elektra, it can use FILE* pointers (using that  elektra  could  open
       and  lock  files),  the  node-hierarchy can be transformed to keysets, but it lacks of many features like
       comments and types.

       The format is more general then the kde-ini format, it can handle  their  configuration  well,  when  the
       section names do not exceed the specified length. Nesting is only required in the first depth, any deeper
       is not understood by kde config parser.

       The  memory  footprint  is for a 190.000 (reduced to 35.000 when rewrote first ) line ini file with 1.1MB
       size is 16.88 MB. The sort order is not stable, even not with the same file rewritten again.

       src_plugins_ni_bohr libraries 'https://github.com/chazomaticus/bohr'

Version 0.8.14                                   Tue Dec 15 2015              md_src_plugins_ni_README(3elektra)