LibConfRead A configuration file reader

Introduction

This project is an attempt to create a standard means to read and parse configuration files for any projects which may need them.

Feel free to make use of it, send me feedback, or contribute back to this project, all under the license.

Installation and Compiling

Install with sudo make install

In source, include #include <confread.h>

Then compile with -lconfread

Config File Standard

The format for the config files this tool will read is as follows:

key=value

[sectionHeader]

sectionkey=sectionvalue

# comment lines

Key-value pairs before any section header will automatically be placed under a section called root

[section header]
keyterm=valueterm
key2=value2
key3=value term
key 4=value term 4
key term = value term

Key-value pairs as well as section headers accept all whitespace, though leading or trailing whitespace characters are removed during parsing

Section headers as well as keys are case sensitive

Exception Case Handling

Duplicate keys in the same section are NOT accepted! The latter instance of the key will overwrite the former

Duplicate section headers are accepted. They will be amalgamated into one section, with duplicate keys overwritten as mentioned above

Data Structures

Confreader creates and uses these data structures to store config files

// The struct for the entire configuration file
struct confread_file {
  char*  name;
  int    count;
  struct confread_section** sections;
};

// The struct for each config section
struct confread_section{
  char*  name;
  int    count;
  struct confread_pair** pairs;
};

// The key-value pair
struct confread_pair{
  char* key;
  char* value;
};

Available Functions

These functions are used to easily create and access the data parsed by confreader

struct confread_file* confread_open(char* path);
struct confread_section* confread_find_section(struct confread_file* confFile, char* name);
struct confread_pair* confread_find_pair(struct confread_section* confSec, char* key);
char* confread_find_value(struct confread_section* confSec, char* key);
void confread_close(struct confread_file** confFile);
int confread_check_pair(struct confread_section *section, char *key, char *value);

confread_open loads the entire config file, making the data accessible and not vulnerable to changes once the program is running

the confread_find functions are then used to quickly find sections, and key-pairs in sections after it has been opened

confread_close should then be called to properly free up all memory used by confreader.