MiniINI is a a free/open source, minimalistic, simple to use C++ library for reading ini (aka cfg) files. It has no dependencies (that might change in the future, but it is unlikely) and should compile on any platform with a standards compliant compiler. (only a makefile for GCC is included at the moment, though)
Main priority of MiniINI is, as its name suggests, minimalism and speed. Its goal is to create fastest ini library possible supporting the most common ini features without sacrificing ease of use. MiniINI should be especially useful for game development, for instance game settings, properties of units in strategy games, etc. MiniINI is already very fast. It takes under 70 ms to load, parse and unload an INI file about 1MB large with 512 sections according to benchmarks, even with debug build. This is on a ~1.7 Ghz dual-core machine (although MiniINI can only use one core).
Debug build of MiniINI can also check ini files it reads, and issue warnings for the most common mistakes in ini code. This should be useful mainly for users of programs based on MiniINI, for instance game modders.
At the moment, MiniINI can only read ini files, not write to them. This should change in future versions.
You can get newest versions of MiniINI at https://launchpad.net/miniini .
INI files are text files containing simple values formatted as tag=value pairs, for example:
answer=42
These are grouped in ini sections which start by headers containing names in square brackets, for example:
[section]
Optionally, ini files can contain comments, which are ignored. Comments usually start by a semicolon (default in MiniINI) or hash and continue to the end of line. Example:
tag=value ;comment
A simple complete ini file example:
[General] OS=Linux Version=0.4 Renderers=OpenGLRenderer, SWRenderer CurrentRenderer=OpenGLRenderer [OpenGLRenderer] ScreenWidth=1024 ScreenHeight=768 UseShaders=true
MiniINI 0.7 finally comes with multiple value tag support, and some other changes.
Tags with multiple, comma separated values can now be read into arrays. A new familt of INISection methods, ReadMultiXXX was added to read multi value tags. If ReadXXX methods are called on a multi-value tag, the first value is read.
A bug that could cause a segfault when allocator allocated a new block was fixed.
Some refactoring of internal code.
Improvements in API documentation, warnings and regression tester.
Using txt2tags for documentation now.
For more details, see CHANGES.txt .
MiniINI files are split into multiple directories:
./ (top-level directory) MiniINI include file and this readme. ./miniini MiniINI source code ./bin Compiled binary files, e.g. the library itself. ./doc Documentation for MiniINI. ./example Example MiniINI programs. ./test Files for MiniINI regression tester and benchmark scripts.
MiniINI should compile on any standards compliant C++ compiler, and requires no third-party libraries. MiniINI also requires C99 support. If you have gcc, there is a GNU makefile tested with gcc 4.x , which probably also works with older gcc versions.
MiniINI also includes some benchmarking scripts, which require Python and Valgrind to run. However, these are not necessary to compile or use MiniINI and are mainly useful for MiniINI development.
Type *make* in terminal. Then type *make install* as a root user (e.g. *sudo make install* if you have sudo) This will compile and copy optimized MiniINI build to */usr/lib/libminiini.a* , debug build to */usr/lib/libminiini-dbg.a* , and copy miniini headers to */usr/include/.
Debug and optimized versions can also be compiled separately using *make debug* and *make optimized*
You can also uninstall MiniINI by typing *make uninstall* as a root user.
First, you will need to include miniini.h header file and link with either debug or optimized miniini build. To include MiniINI, add this line to your code:
#include<miniini.h>
To link with MiniINI using GCC, add this to your compiler options:
-lminiini
for optimized or
-lminiini-dbg
for debug build.
If you didn't install MiniINI, you'll also need to add path with miniini.h to header paths of your compiler and path with libminiini.a or libminiini-dbg.a to linker paths.
For more info you can check reference manual and tutorials in *./doc* directory and examples in *./example* directory.
MiniINI is free/open source software distributed under the MIT/X11 license. This license allows you to use MiniINI in both open and closed source software, free of charge, and modify it if you need to.
Full text of the license:
Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Ferdinand Majerech Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
MiniINI homepage at Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/miniini
MiniINI was created by Ferdinand Majerech aka Kiith-Sa kiithsacmp[AT]gmail.com
MiniINI was created using Vim and GCC on Ubuntu Linux, as an ini reading library for Catom https://launchpad.net/catom .