parse_ini_file

  • We use the parse_ini_file function in PHP to read Windows-style INI configuration files, like php.ini. Given this INI file in /path/to/foobar.ini:

    [foo]
bar=baz

    We can then parse the file easily using parse_ini_file:

    PHP

    $conf = parse_ini_file('/path/to/foobar.ini', true);
print $conf['foo']['bar'];
 
//=> "baz"

    It’s surprisingly difficult to parse an INI file in Ruby because there’s no support for it in the Ruby Standard Library and also no projects on RubyForge to help.

    We found this snippet on DZone that implements INI handling in Ruby. Using it is similar to parse_ini_file::

    Ruby

    conf = Ini.new('/path/to/foobar.ini')
p conf['foo']['bar']
 
#=> "baz"

    The absence of INI support in Ruby is most likely due to its culture. PHP users are very accustomed to working with INI files like php.ini. Rubyists tend to favor YAML, which is the format of Rails’ database configuration file (database.yml).

    For more information on YAML in both Ruby and PHP, see our article PHP, Meet YAML.

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