i18n Resource File Formats: ini files
This time among all the resource file formats that are common in software localization we're looking at ini files. Some other formats are explained in separate blog posts.
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.ini files are commonly used in applications on various platforms. There is no standard for ini files, and the applications can vary in their use of key-value delimiters, comment masks, comment positions, sections nesting, support for blank lines...
When using .ini files, lingohub expects that:
- key-value pairs are delimited with the equal character (=) or colon (:), and terminated by a new line
- values can not spread to multiple lines.
- section declarations can have this form: [section]
- all keys after the section declaration are associated with that section
- there is no explicit "end of section" delimiter and sections end on next section declaration or at the end of file
- sections can not be nested
- place-holders are not supported
- comment lines can start with hash (#) or semicolon (;), and everything up to the end of the line is treated as a comment
- comment is assigned to the next key-value pair unless there are any blank lines or section declarations in between
.ini file example with comments
; this comment is ignored because it is not directly followed by a key-value pairComment below if you have any general questions on resource file formats, ini or other.; this comment is also ignored because it is followed by a section [section1]
; comments in .ini files can start with hash hello_user = Hello stranger!
[section2] ; this key belongs to section2 and no longer to section1 welcome_message = Welcome back, we have missed you
; multi line comments belong to the next key value pair ; as long as they are not interrupted by a white line visit_count = this is your millionth visit to our site
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