Broccolini 0.2.0

Broccolini 🥦

Broccolini is a non-destructive parser for INI files. The main goal is compatibility with the INI format used in Windows OS (GetPrivateProfileString and friends).

Usage

<details> <summary>INI file used in examples</summary>

[database]
server = 192.0.2.62
port = 1234

</details>

Reading

var syntax = IniParser.Parse(File.ReadAllText("config.ini"));
var document = syntax.ToSemanticModel();
string databaseServer = document["database"]["server"];
string databasePort = document["database"]["port"];

Editing

var syntax = IniParser.Parse(File.ReadAllText("config.ini"));
var updated = syntax
    .WithSection("owner", section => section.WithKeyValue("name", "John Doe"))
    .UpdateSection("database", section => section.RemoveKeyValue("port"));
File.WriteAllText("config.ini", updated.ToString(), Encoding.Unicode);

Known Differences

While Broccolini tries to replicate most of the behaviour found in the Windows APIs, there are still some intentional differences:

• GetPrivateProfileString does not support keys or section names that contain NULL characters (\0).
  Broccolini supports such keys and section names.
• While the editing API in Broccolini shares the goal of changing as little as possible, its behaviour does not explicitly replicate the behaviour of WritePrivateProfileString.
• GetPrivateProfileString breaks when a unicode file contains a non-trailing NULL character (\0).
  Broccolini supports such files.

Goals

• Compatibiliy with INI format in Windows OS.
• Roundtrips (Parse → ToString) should preserve everything.
• Editing should preserve as much (whitespace, comments, etc.) as possible.
• An extensive test suite.

Non-Goals

• Deserialization into non-string types (complex objects, numbers, booleans, etc.)
• Customizable parsing rules (e.g. different comment syntax)
• Performance