npm/ini

An ini format parser and serializer for node.

Sections are treated as nested objects. Items before the first heading are saved on the object directly.

Usage

Consider an ini-file config.ini that looks like this:

    ; this comment is being ignored
    scope = global

    [database]
    user = dbuser
    password = dbpassword
    database = use_this_database

    [paths.default]
    datadir = /var/lib/data
    array[] = first value
    array[] = second value
    array[] = third value

You can read, manipulate and write the ini-file like so:

    var fs = require('fs')
      , ini = require('ini')

    var config = ini.parse(fs.readFileSync('./config.ini', 'utf-8'))

    config.scope = 'local'
    config.database.database = 'use_another_database'
    config.paths.default.tmpdir = '/tmp'
    delete config.paths.default.datadir
    config.paths.default.array.push('fourth value')

    fs.writeFileSync('./config_modified.ini', ini.stringify(config, { section: 'section' }))

This will result in a file called config_modified.ini being written to the filesystem with the following content:

    [section]
    scope=local
    [section.database]
    user=dbuser
    password=dbpassword
    database=use_another_database
    [section.paths.default]
    tmpdir=/tmp
    array[]=first value
    array[]=second value
    array[]=third value
    array[]=fourth value

API

decode(inistring)

Decode the ini-style formatted inistring into a nested object.

parse(inistring)

Alias for decode(inistring)

encode(object, [options])

Encode the object object into an ini-style formatted string. If the optional parameter section is given, then all top-level properties of the object are put into this section and the section-string is prepended to all sub-sections, see the usage example above.

The options object may contain the following:

• align Boolean to specify whether to align the = characters for each section. This option will automatically enable whitespace. Defaults to false.
• section String which will be the first section in the encoded ini data. Defaults to none.
• sort Boolean to specify if all keys in each section, as well as all sections, will be alphabetically sorted. Defaults to false.
• whitespace Boolean to specify whether to put whitespace around the = character. By default, whitespace is omitted, to be friendly to some persnickety old parsers that don't tolerate it well. But some find that it's more human-readable and pretty with the whitespace. Defaults to false.
• newline Boolean to specify whether to put an additional newline after a section header. Some INI file parsers (for example the TOSHIBA FlashAir one) need this to parse the file successfully. By default, the additional newline is omitted.
• platform String to define which platform this INI file is expected to be used with: when platform is win32, line terminations are CR+LF, for other platforms line termination is LF. By default, the current platform name is used.
• bracketedArrays Boolean to specify whether array values are appended with []. By default this is true but there are some ini parsers that instead treat duplicate names as arrays.

For backwards compatibility reasons, if a string options is passed in, then it is assumed to be the section value.

stringify(object, [options])

Alias for encode(object, [options])

safe(val)

Escapes the string val such that it is safe to be used as a key or value in an ini-file. Basically escapes quotes. For example

    ini.safe('"unsafe string"')

would result in

"\"unsafe string\""

unsafe(val)

Unescapes the string val