1Introduction

The parser.ini system provides a parser for the "ini-like" family of configuration syntaxes. A builder-based protocol is used to construct parse results.

2Tutorial

To parse a string of configuration options and return the result as a simple list-based structure, the parse function is called with the symbol list instead of a more complicated builder object:

 (parser.ini:parse "[section] option = value" 'list)

 ((:SECTION
 (:SECTION-OPTION
 (((:OPTION NIL :NAME ("option") :VALUE "value" :BOUNDS (10 . 24)))))
 :NAME ("section") :BOUNDS (0 . 9)))

Syntactic variants (comments, assignment operator, interpretation of whitespace in values, etc.) are controlled via special variables (note : instead of =):

 (let ((parser.ini:*assignment-operator* #\:))
 (parser.ini:parse "[section] option: value" 'list))

 ((:SECTION
 (:SECTION-OPTION
 (((:OPTION NIL :NAME ("option") :VALUE "value" :BOUNDS (10 . 23)))))
 :NAME ("section") :BOUNDS (0 . 9)))

The builder-based protocol allows constructing arbitrary result objects:

 (defstruct located bounds)
 (defstruct (section (:include located)) name options)
 (defstruct (option (:include located)) name value)
 (defmethod architecture.builder-protocol:make-node
 ((builder (eql :my-builder)) (kind (eql :section)) &key name bounds)
 (make-section :name name :bounds bounds))
 (defmethod architecture.builder-protocol:relate
 ((builder (eql :my-builder))
 (relation (eql :section-option))
 (left section)
 (right option)
 &key)
 (alexandria:appendf (section-options left) (list right))
 left)
 (defmethod architecture.builder-protocol:make-node
 ((builder (eql :my-builder)) (kind (eql :option)) &key name value bounds)
 (make-option :name name :value value :bounds bounds))
 (parser.ini:parse "[section] option = value" :my-builder)

(#S(SECTION
 :BOUNDS (0 . 9)
 :NAME ("section")
 :OPTIONS (#S(OPTION :BOUNDS (10 . 24) :NAME ("option") :VALUE "value"))))
NIL
T

3TODOReference

4Settings :noexport: