NAME

Prima::IniFile - support of Windows-like initialization files

DESCRIPTION

The module contains a class, that provides mapping of text initialization file to a two-level hash structure. The first level is called sections, which groups the second level hashes, called items. Sections must have unique keys. The items hashes values are arrays of text strings. The methods, operated on these arrays are get_values, set_values, add_values and replace_values.

SYNOPSIS

        use Prima::IniFile;

        my $ini = create Prima::IniFile;
        my $ini = create Prima::IniFile FILENAME;
        my $ini = create Prima::IniFile FILENAME,
                                        default => HASHREF_OR_ARRAYREF;
        my $ini = create Prima::IniFile file => FILENAME,
                                        default => HASHREF_OR_ARRAYREF;

        my @sections = $ini->sections;
        my @items = $ini->items(SECTION);
        my @items = $ini->items(SECTION, 1);
        my @items = $ini->items(SECTION, all => 1);

        my $value = $ini-> get_values(SECTION, ITEM);
        my @vals = $ini-> get_values(SECTION, ITEM);
        my $nvals = $ini-> nvalues(SECTION, ITEM);

        $ini-> set_values(SECTION, ITEM, LIST);
        $ini-> add_values(SECTION, ITEM, LIST);
        $ini-> replace_values(SECTION, ITEM, LIST);

        $ini-> write;
        $ini-> clean;
        $ini-> read( FILENAME);
        $ini-> read( FILENAME, default => HASHREF_OR_ARRAYREF);

        my $sec = $ini->section(SECTION);
        $sec->{ITEM} = VALUE;
        my $val = $sec->{ITEM};
        delete $sec->{ITEM};
        my %everything = %$sec;
        %$sec = ();
        for ( keys %$sec) { ... }
        while ( my ($k,$v) = each %$sec) { ... }

METHODS

add_values SECTION, ITEM, @LIST: Adds LIST of string values to the ITEM in SECTION.
clean: Cleans all internal data in the object, including the name of the file.
create PROFILE: Creates an instance of the class. The PROFILE is treated partly as an array, partly as a hash. If PROFILE consists of a single item, the item is treated as a filename. Otherwise, PROFILE is treated as a hash, where the following keys are allowed:

file FILENAME: Selects name of file.
default %VALUES: Selects the initial values for the file, where VALUES is a two-level hash of sections and items. It is passed to read, where it is merged with the file data.

get_values SECTION, ITEM

Returns array of values for ITEM in SECTION. If called in scalar context, and there is more than one value, the first value in list is returned.

items SECTION [ HINTS ]

Returns items in SECTION. HINTS parameters is used to tell if a multiple-valued item must be returned as several items of the same name; HINTS can be supplied in the following forms:

items( $section, 1 ) items( $section, all => 1);

new PROFILE

Same as create.

nvalues SECTION, ITEM

Returns number of values in ITEM in SECTION.

read FILENAME, %PROFILE

Flushes the old content and opens new file. FILENAME is a text string, PROFILE is a two-level hash of default values for the new file. PROFILE is merged with the data from file, and the latter keep the precedence. Does not return any success values but, warns if any error is occurred.

replace_values SECTION, ITEM, @VALUES

Removes all values form ITEM in SECTION and assigns it to the new list of VALUES.

section SECTION

Returns a tied hash for SECTION. All its read and write operations are reflected in the caller object, which allows the following syntax:

        my $section = $inifile-> section( 'Sample section');
        $section-> {Item1} = 'Value1';

which is identical to

        $inifile-> set_items( 'Sample section', 'Item1', 'Value1');

sections

Returns array of section names.

set_values SECTION, ITEM, @VALUES

Assigns VALUES to ITEM in SECTION. If number of new values are equal or greater than the number of the old, the method is same as replace_values. Otherwise, the values with indices higher than the number of new values are not touched.

write

Rewrites the file with the object content. The object keeps an internal modification flag under name "{changed}"; in case it is "undef", no actual write is performed.

AUTHORS

Anton Berezin, <tobez@plab.ku.dk>

Dmitry Karasik <dmitry@karasik.eu.org>