README.md

IxMilia.Config

A portable .NET library for reading and writing INI-style configuration files.

Usage

Configuration handling is implemented as a set of extension methods on string and IDictionary<string, string> to enable maximum portability. Key/value pairs are reflected in the <section-name>.<key-name> = <value> format. E.g.,

Given the following file:

[heading1]
key1 = value1
key2 = value2

[heading2]
key3 = value3

The following dictionary mappings will be produced:

"heading1.key1" => "value1"
"heading1.key2" => "value2"
"heading2.key3" => "value3"

To read a config file from disk:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using IxMilia.Config;
// ...

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(@"C:\Path\To\File.config");
IDictionary<string, string> dict = new Dictionary<string, string>();
dict.ParseConfig(lines);

When writing a file back to disk you have the option of provding the original lines from the file which will preserve as much of the original file's structure as possible.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using IxMilia.Config;
// ...

IDictionary<string, string> dict = ...;
string configText;
string configFilePath = @"C:\Path\To\File.config";
if (<preserve structure>)
{
    // read in the existing lines to try to copy the original file's structure
    string[] existingLines = File.ReadAllLines(configFilePath);
    configText = dict.WriteConfig(existingLines);
}
else
{
    // don't preserve any structure
    configText = dict.WriteConfig();
}

// write the new contents
File.WriteAllText(configFilePath, configText);

Building locally

To build locally, install the latest .NET 8.0 SDK.

Integration

All relevant code is in the src\IxMilia.Config\ConfigExtensions.cs file so you can either build and link against the assembly or directly include in your project just by copying one file.