External INI file to Control Script Settings

[Crazyace]

Hello All,

I'm about to start working on a log building script and I was thinking about using an external ini file to control settings for the application that the user can edit and have the script use the new settings. Does anyone have any examples by chance of something simple? I just need an idea to help me get started.

[water]

You mean an INI file editor? If yes, you should try

Edited May 3, 2012 by water

[rodent1]

For one of my projects, I use a text ini file with this format:

val1=true

val2=4

val3="text"

I read it, pass its contents to this function to populate variables from it:

Func ReadInputParms ( $InBuf ) ;$inBuf is the text contents of the ini file

dim $Input

dim $InTokens

dim $KeyVal

dim $Key

Dim $bDimmed = false

$InBuf = StringRight ( $InBuf, StringLen ( $InBuf ) - 1 )

if StringLen ( $InBuf ) = 0 Then

; Process the command line if no buffer was passed in

$Input = $CmdLineRaw

EndIf

$InTokens = StringSplit($InBuf, @CRLF, 1)

Dim $boolval, $numval, $stringval

for $i = 1 to $InTokens[0] ; loop through all input lines, and parse them

if StringLen ( $InTokens [ $i ] ) > 0 Then

Dim $array = StringSplit($InTokens[$i], "=")

$Key = StringLower($array[1])

if StringInStr($Key, chr(34)) > 0 Then $Key = StringReplace($Key, chr(34), "")

if StringInStr($InTokens[$i], "=") > 0 Then

$KeyVal = $array[2]

; remove start and end quotes if needed

if StringLeft($KeyVal, 1) = chr(34) and StringRight($KeyVal, 1) = chr(34) Then

$KeyVal = StringMid($KeyVal, 2, stringlen($KeyVal) - 2)

EndIf

Else

$KeyVal = True

EndIf

select

case StringLower ( $Key ) = "booleanvalue"

$boolval = ( StringLower($KeyVal) = "true" ) ; assign ini value to boolean variable

case StringLower ( $Key ) = "numericvalue"

$numval = $KeyVal * 1 ; assign ini value to numeric value

Case StringLower ( $Key ) = "stringval"

$stringval = $KeyVal ; assign ini value to string variable

case StringLower ( $Key ) = "/?" ; user asked for help, display usage

ShowUsage("")

Exit 0

case Else ; unexpected value, show usage

ShowUsage("Unknown parameter, '" & $InTokens[$i] & "'.")

Exit 1

EndSelect

EndIf

Next

EndFunc

Edited May 3, 2012 by rodent1

[Crazyace]

You mean an INI file editor? If yes, you should try

Thanks for the reply. Here is an example of what I mean.

So the application will have a button and a textpad. When the button is clicked it will send the following text to the textpad "You press a Button" I would like to have an ini file that button one get's it's text from. So the user could go in and make it say something different.

rodent1 seems to have done something like this before.

[BrewManNH]

Here's something to demo a way to do it. It's very basic, but it allows you to create and change the INI file.

$IniFile = "text.ini"
$ButtonText = IniRead($IniFile, "news", "motd", " Hello ")
GUICreate("test", 200, 100)
$Button = GUICtrlCreateButton(" Say something ", 10, 10)
$Edit = GUICtrlCreateEdit("", 10, 40, 180, 50)
$Button2 = GUICtrlCreateButton(" Change INI text ", 100, 10)
GUISetState()
while 1
 $msg = GUIGetMsg()
 Switch $msg
  Case -3
   Exit
  case $Button
   $ButtonText = IniRead($IniFile, "news", "motd", " Hello ")
   GUICtrlSetData($Edit, $ButtonText)
  Case $Button2
   IniWrite($IniFile, "news", "motd", GUICtrlRead($Edit))
 EndSwitch
WEnd

[Mechaflash]

I've used an ini file for an app I made to merge PDFs for a 2000 page state public record file. The application is deployed in 4 offices for the managers, and the ini file and main documents sits on our NAS, available to all of them. When the app starts, the program pulls all of the program parameters: path to the current year's public record file, location of the last backup (for an undo feature), passwords, etc. The file in question gets copied to the local machine and a lock file is created on the NAS while a user is working on it, and all processing takes place on the local machine. When the user is finished, the completed file gets copied back to the NAS and the new parameters are saved to the ini.

[water]

AutoIt provides functions to read and write ini files.

Ooops - a bit late.

Edited May 3, 2012 by water