class Hashery::IniHash

Hash class with methods to read from and write into ini files.

A ini file is a text file in a specific format, it may include several fields which are sparated by field headlines which are enclosured by “[]”. Each field may include several key-value pairs.

Each key-value pair is represented by one line and the value is sparated from the key by a “=”.

Examples

Example ini file

# this is the first comment which will be saved in the comment attribute
mail=info@example.com
domain=example.com # this is a comment which will not be saved
[database]
db=example
user=john
passwd=very-secure
host=localhost
# this is another comment
[filepaths]
tmp=/tmp/example
lib=/home/john/projects/example/lib
htdocs=/home/john/projects/example/htdocs
[ texts ]
wellcome=Wellcome on my new website!
Website description = This is only a example. # and another comment

Example object

Ini#comment stores:

"this is the first comment which will be saved in the comment attribute"

Ini’s internal hash stores:

{
 "mail" => "info@example.com",
 "domain" => "example.com",
 "database" => {
  "db" => "example",
  "user" => "john",
  "passwd" => "very-secure",
  "host" => "localhost"
 },
 "filepaths" => {
  "tmp" => "/tmp/example",
  "lib" => "/home/john/projects/example/lib",
  "htdocs" => "/home/john/projects/example/htdocs"
 }
 "texts" => {
  "wellcome" => "Wellcome on my new website!",
  "Website description" => "This is only a example."
 }
}

As you can see this module gets rid of all comments, linebreaks and unnecessary spaces at the beginning and the end of each field headline, key or value.

Using the object

Using the object is stright forward:

ini = IniHash.new("path/settings.ini")
ini["mail"] = "info@example.com"
ini["filepaths"] = { "tmp" => "/tmp/example" }
ini.comment = "This is\na comment"
puts ini["filepaths"]["tmp"]
# => /tmp/example
ini.write()

Acknowlegements

IniHash is based on ini.rb.

Copyright © 2007 Jeena Paradies <info@jeenaparadies.net>