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:
```ini
; 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:
```js
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:
```ini
[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
```js
ini.safe('"unsafe string"')
```
would result in
"\"unsafe string\""
### unsafe(val)
Unescapes the string `val`