Package org.apache.commons.configuration2

Class INIConfiguration

java.lang.Object
org.apache.commons.configuration2.event.BaseEventSource
org.apache.commons.configuration2.AbstractConfiguration
org.apache.commons.configuration2.AbstractHierarchicalConfiguration<ImmutableNode>
org.apache.commons.configuration2.BaseHierarchicalConfiguration
org.apache.commons.configuration2.INIConfiguration
All Implemented Interfaces:
Cloneable, Configuration, EventSource, FileBasedConfiguration, HierarchicalConfiguration<ImmutableNode>, ImmutableConfiguration, ImmutableHierarchicalConfiguration, FileBased, SynchronizerSupport, InMemoryNodeModelSupport, NodeKeyResolver<ImmutableNode>, NodeModelSupport<ImmutableNode>
public class INIConfiguration extends BaseHierarchicalConfiguration implements FileBasedConfiguration

A specialized hierarchical configuration implementation for parsing ini files.

An initialization or ini file is a configuration file typically found on Microsoft's Windows operating system and contains data for Windows based applications.

Although popularized by Windows, ini files can be used on any system or platform due to the fact that they are merely text files that can easily be parsed and modified by both humans and computers.

A typical ini file could look something like: 

 [section1]
 ; this is a comment!
 var1 = foo
 var2 = bar

 [section2]
 var1 = doo

The format of ini files is fairly straight forward and is composed of three components:

  • Sections: Ini files are split into sections, each section starting with a section declaration. A section declaration starts with a '[' and ends with a ']'. Sections occur on one line only.
  • Parameters: Items in a section are known as parameters. Parameters have a typical key = value format.
  • Comments: Lines starting with a ';' are assumed to be comments.

There are various implementations of the ini file format by various vendors which has caused a number of differences to appear. As far as possible this configuration tries to be lenient and support most of the differences.

Some of the differences supported are as follows:

  • Comments: The '#' character is also accepted as a comment signifier.
  • Key value separator: The ':' character is also accepted in place of '=' to separate keys and values in parameters, for example var1 : foo.
  • Duplicate sections: Typically duplicate sections are not allowed, this configuration does however support this feature. In the event of a duplicate section, the two section's values are merged so that there is only a single section. Note: This also affects the internal data of the configuration. If it is saved, only a single section is written!
  • Duplicate parameters: Typically duplicate parameters are only allowed if they are in two different sections, thus they are local to sections; this configuration simply merges duplicates; if a section has a duplicate parameter the values are then added to the key as a list.

Global parameters are also allowed; any parameters declared before a section is declared are added to a global section. It is important to note that this global section does not have a name.

In all instances, a parameter's key is prepended with its section name and a '.' (period). Thus a parameter named "var1" in "section1" will have the key section1.var1 in this configuration. (This is the default behavior. Because this is a hierarchical configuration you can change this by setting a different ExpressionEngine.)

Implementation Details: Consider the following ini file: 

  default = ok

  [section1]
  var1 = foo
  var2 = doodle

  [section2]
  ; a comment
  var1 = baz
  var2 = shoodle
  bad =
  = worse

  [section3]
  # another comment
  var1 : foo
  var2 : bar
  var5 : test1

  [section3]
  var3 = foo
  var4 = bar
  var5 = test2

  [sectionSeparators]
  passwd : abc=def
  a:b = "value"

This ini file will be parsed without error. Note:

  • The parameter named "default" is added to the global section, it's value is accessed simply using getProperty("default").
  • Section 1's parameters can be accessed using getProperty("section1.var1").
  • The parameter named "bad" simply adds the parameter with an empty value.
  • The empty key with value "= worse" is added using a key consisting of a single space character. This key is still added to section 2 and the value can be accessed using getProperty("section2. "), notice the period '.' and the space following the section name.
  • Section three uses both '=' and ':' to separate keys and values.
  • Section 3 has a duplicate key named "var5". The value for this key is [test1, test2], and is represented as a List.
  • The section called sectionSeparators demonstrates how the configuration deals with multiple occurrences of separator characters. Per default the first separator character in a line is detected and used to split the key from the value. Therefore the first property definition in this section has the key passwd and the value abc=def. This default behavior can be changed by using quotes. If there is a separator character before the first quote character (ignoring whitespace), this character is used as separator. Thus the second property definition in the section has the key a:b and the value value.

Internally, this configuration maps the content of the represented ini file to its node structure in the following way:

  • Sections are represented by direct child nodes of the root node.
  • For the content of a section, corresponding nodes are created as children of the section node.

This explains how the keys for the properties can be constructed. You can also use other methods of HierarchicalConfiguration for querying or manipulating the hierarchy of configuration nodes, for instance the configurationAt() method for obtaining the data of a specific section. However, be careful that the storage scheme described above is not violated (e.g. by adding multiple levels of nodes or inserting duplicate section nodes). Otherwise, the special methods for ini configurations may not work correctly!

The set of sections in this configuration can be retrieved using the getSections() method. For obtaining a SubnodeConfiguration with the content of a specific section the getSection() method can be used.

Like other Configuration implementations, this class uses a Synchronizer object to control concurrent access. By choosing a suitable implementation of the Synchronizer interface, an instance can be made thread-safe or not. Note that access to most of the properties typically set through a builder is not protected by the Synchronizer. The intended usage is that these properties are set once at construction time through the builder and after that remain constant. If you wish to change such properties during life time of an instance, you have to use the lock() and unlock() methods manually to ensure that other threads see your changes.

As this class extends AbstractConfiguration, all basic features like variable interpolation, list handling, or data type conversions are available as well. This is described in the chapter Basic features and AbstractConfiguration of the user's guide.

Note that this configuration does not support properties with null values. Such properties are considered to be section nodes.

Since:
1.6

  • Field Details

  • Constructor Details

  • Method Details

    • builder

      public static INIConfiguration.Builder builder()
      Creates a new builder.
      Returns:
      a new builder.
      Since:
      2.9.0

    • getSeparatorUsedInOutput

      public String getSeparatorUsedInOutput()
      Gets separator used in INI output. see setSeparatorUsedInOutput for further explanation
      Returns:
      the current separator for writing the INI output
      Since:
      2.2

    • setSeparatorUsedInOutput

      public void setSeparatorUsedInOutput(String separator)
      Allows setting the key and value separator which is used for the creation of the resulting INI output
      Parameters:
      separator - String of the new separator for INI output
      Since:
      2.2

    • getSeparatorUsedInInput

      public String getSeparatorUsedInInput()
      Gets separator used in INI reading. see setSeparatorUsedInInput for further explanation
      Returns:
      the current separator for reading the INI input
      Since:
      2.5

    • setSeparatorUsedInInput

      public void setSeparatorUsedInInput(String separator)
      Allows setting the key and value separator which is used in reading an INI file
      Parameters:
      separator - String of the new separator for INI reading
      Since:
      2.5

    • getCommentLeadingCharsUsedInInput

      public String getCommentLeadingCharsUsedInInput()
      Gets comment leading separator used in INI reading. see setCommentLeadingCharsUsedInInput for further explanation
      Returns:
      the current separator for reading the INI input
      Since:
      2.5

    • setCommentLeadingCharsUsedInInput

      public void setCommentLeadingCharsUsedInInput(String separator)
      Allows setting the leading comment separator which is used in reading an INI file
      Parameters:
      separator - String of the new separator for INI reading
      Since:
      2.5

    • write

      public void write(Writer writer) throws ConfigurationException, IOException
      Save the configuration to the specified writer.
      Specified by:
      write in interface FileBased
      Parameters:
      writer - - The writer to save the configuration to.
      Throws:
      ConfigurationException - If an error occurs while writing the configuration
      IOException - if an I/O error occurs.

    • read

      public void read(Reader in) throws ConfigurationException, IOException
      Load the configuration from the given reader. Note that the clear() method is not called so the configuration read in will be merged with the current configuration.
      Specified by:
      read in interface FileBased
      Parameters:
      in - the reader to read the configuration from.
      Throws:
      ConfigurationException - If an error occurs while reading the configuration
      IOException - if an I/O error occurs.

    • isCommentLine

      protected boolean isCommentLine(String line)
      Determine if the given line is a comment line.
      Parameters:
      line - The line to check.
      Returns:
      true if the line is empty or starts with one of the comment characters

    • isSectionLine

      protected boolean isSectionLine(String line)
      Determine if the given line is a section.
      Parameters:
      line - The line to check.
      Returns:
      true if the line contains a section

    • getSections

      public Set<String> getSections()
      Gets a set containing the sections in this ini configuration. Note that changes to this set do not affect the configuration.
      Returns:
      a set containing the sections.

    • getSection

      public SubnodeConfiguration getSection(String name)
      Gets a configuration with the content of the specified section. This provides an easy way of working with a single section only. The way this configuration is structured internally, this method is very similar to calling HierarchicalConfiguration.configurationAt(String) with the name of the section in question. There are the following differences however:
      • This method never throws an exception. If the section does not exist, it is created now. The configuration returned in this case is empty.
      • If section is contained multiple times in the configuration, the configuration returned by this method is initialized with the first occurrence of the section. (This can only happen if addProperty() has been used in a way that does not conform to the storage scheme used by INIConfiguration. If used correctly, there will not be duplicate sections.)
      • There is special support for the global section: Passing in null as section name returns a configuration with the content of the global section (which may also be empty).
      Parameters:
      name - the name of the section in question; null represents the global section
      Returns:
      a configuration containing only the properties of the specified section