Scripts/IniFiles

Read from and Write to INI files

This script defines verbs to cover the Windows API functions for reading and writing INI (or *.ini) files. The use of INI files to store configuration information for applications has been deprecated in favour of the Registry or XML files. Nevertheless some of us working with older/simpler applications may find the following useful.

getPPAllKeys	v	Gets all the keynames and values in an INI file
getPPSection	v	Gets all the keys and values for a section of an INI file
getPPSectionNames	v	Gets section names from an INI file
getPPString	v	Gets the value of a key from an INI file
getPPValue	v	Gets a key value from an INI file without comments
getPPVals	v	Gets and interprets a key value from an INI file
join	v	Unbox and delimit a list of boxed items y with x
makeString	v	Creates space-delimited string from numeric list, list of boxed literals or numbers
makeVals	v	Interprets a string as numeric or list of boxed literals
writePPString	v	Writes key and key value to an INI file
writePPSection	v	Writes list of key;keyvalue lists to an INI file

NOTE

The following definitions need to be corrected/changed for J6.01, but have all been made for J6.02.
GetPrivateProfileStringA and WritePrivateProfileStringA in the J6.01 distributed file ~system/packages/winapi/win32api.dat are incorrect and need to be corrected for getPPString and writePPString to work. Also the definition for GetPrivateProfileSectionNamesA is not included in win32api.dat and needs to be added for getPPSectionNames to work.

Usage

[{{#file: "example.ini"}} Download script: example.ini ]

[Control]
BatchMode=1   # Run in batch mode?
nCycles=10     #Number of cycles to run for
BrkAtModule=ModuleFour  #Module to break after
Resume=0      # Resume?
ResumeAtModule=ModuleTwo #Name of module to resume at

[Formats]
#This section defines display formats
Colors=Red Blue Yellow Green
Border=240 240 240  #color for borders
BlackWhite=0

[EmptySection]

[User]
Name=Joe Bloggs
Email=bloggs@mydomain.com
FavMovie=The Lion King
Birthdate= 2002 5 12  #year month day

Interact with the INI file as follows:

   load jpath '~temp/inifiles.ijs'
   fln=: jpath '~temp/example.ini'
   getPPSectionNames fln
┌───────┬───────┬────────────┬────┐
│Control│Formats│EmptySection│User│
└───────┴───────┴────────────┴────┘
   getPPString fln;'Formats';'Border'
240 240 240  #color for borders
   getPPValue fln;'Formats';'Border'
240 240 240
   datatype getPPValue fln;'Formats';'Border'
literal
   getPPVals fln;'Formats';'Border'
240 240 240
   datatype getPPVals fln;'Formats';'Border'
integer
   getPPVals fln;'Formats';'Colors'
┌───┬────┬──────┬─────┐
│Red│Blue│Yellow│Green│
└───┴────┴──────┴─────┘
   getPPSection fln;'User'
┌─────────┬───────────────────┐
│Name     │Joe Bloggs         │
├─────────┼───────────────────┤
│Email    │bloggs@mydomain.com│
├─────────┼───────────────────┤
│FavMovie │The Lion King      │
├─────────┼───────────────────┤
│Birthdate│2002 5 12          │
└─────────┴───────────────────┘
   getPPAllSections fln
┌───────┬──────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│Control│BatchMode     │1                    │
├───────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│Control│nCycles       │10                   │
├───────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────┤
...

├───────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│User   │FavMovie      │The Lion King        │
├───────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│User   │Birthdate     │2002 5 12            │
└───────┴──────────────┴─────────────────────┘
   writePPString fln;'Formats';'Colors';<'Brown';'Pink';'Purple'
1
   getPPString fln;'Formats';'Colors'
Brown Pink Purple
   getPPVals fln;'Formats';'Colors'
┌─────┬────┬──────┐
│Brown│Pink│Purple│
└─────┴────┴──────┘
   writePPString fln;'Formats';'Default';200 200 200
1
   getPPSection fln;'Formats'
┌──────────┬─────────────────┐
│Colors    │Brown Pink Purple│
├──────────┼─────────────────┤
│Border    │240 240 240      │
├──────────┼─────────────────┤
│BlackWhite│0                │
├──────────┼─────────────────┤
│Default   │200 200 200      │
└──────────┴─────────────────┘

Code

You can download the three files example.ini, inifiles.ijs and testinifiles.ijs packaged together as one zip file by choosing the Literate item in the More Actions drop-down list at the top of the page. [{{#file: "inifiles.ijs"}} Download script: inifiles.ijs ]

NB.cover functions for winapi functions for reading from & writing to INI files
require 'winapi strings'