Are comments allowed in Windows ini files? (...assuming you're using the GetPrivateProfileString api functions to read them...)
[Section]
Name=Value ; comment
; full line comment
And, is there a proper spec of the .INI file format anywhere?
Thanks for the replies - However maybe I wasn't clear enough. It's only the format as read by Windows API Calls that I'm interested in. I know other implementations allow comments, but it's specifically the MS Windows spec and implementation that I need to know about.
Windows INI API support for:
Line comments: yes, using semi-colon ;
Trailing comments: No
The authoritative source is the Windows API function that reads values out of INI files
GetPrivateProfileString
Retrieves a string from the specified section in an initialization file.
The reason "full line comments" work is because the requested value does not exist. For example, when parsing the following ini file contents:
[Application]
UseLiveData=1
;coke=zero
pepsi=diet ;gag
#stackoverflow=splotchy
Reading the values:
UseLiveData: 1
coke: not present
;coke: not present
pepsi: diet ;gag
stackoverflow: not present
#stackoverflow: splotchy
Update: I used to think that the number sign (#) was a pseudo line-comment character. The reason using leading # works to hide stackoverflow is because the name stackoverflow no longer exists. And it turns out that semi-colon (;) is a line-comment.
But there is no support for trailing comments.
I have seen comments in INI files, so yes. Please refer to this Wikipedia article. I could not find an official specification, but that is the correct syntax for comments, as many game INI files had this as I remember.
Edit
The API returns the Value and the Comment (forgot to mention this in my reply), just construct and example INI file and call the API on this (with comments) and you can see how this is returned.
USE A SEMI-COLON AT BEGINING OF LINE --->> ; <<---
Ex.
; last modified 1 April 2001 by John Doe
[owner]
name=John Doe
organization=Acme Widgets Inc.
I like the analysis of #Ian Boyd, because it is based on the official GetPrivateProfileString() method of Microsoft.
In my attempts of writing a Microsoft compatible INI parser, I'm having a closer look at the said Microsoft API and for comments I found out:
you can have line comments using semicolon
the semicolon needn't be the first character of the line; it can be preceded by space, tab or vertical tab
you can have trailing "comments" after a section even without semicolon. It's probably not intended to be a comment, but the parser will ignore it.
values outside a section cannot be accessed (at least I did not find a way), effectively making them useless except for commenting purposes
certainly abuse, but the parser overflows at 65536 characters, so anything after that will not be part of the value either. I would not rely on this, since Microsoft could fix this in later versions of Windows. Also, it's not very useful as a comment when you don't see it.
Example:
this=cannot be accessed
[section]this=is ignored
;this=is a line comment
;this=is a comment preceded by spaces
key=value <... 65530 spaces ...>this=cannot be parsed
Yes, it allows.
The way to comment is to use ; for a new line rather than just after the content you want to comment in the same line, which is allowable for other files where you want to comment.
Let me show you an example:
I use .ini file to pass some parameters for my training file when I use SUMO software. If I write like this:
width_layers = 400 ;the number of neurons per layer in the neural network.
I will get an error message which is
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: '400 ;the number of neurons per layer in the neural network.'
I have to create a line for that, which is
width_layers = 400
;the number of neurons per layer in the neural network.
Then, it will work. Hope it helps in detail!
Related
I saw a YAML file that includes some signs like $, ^. For $, I think it tries to get value from a JSON file. But for ^, I'm not sure about that.
I tried to search for the YAML syntax but cannot find the usage of those signs.
Could anyone point out where that usage from? Thanks a lot!
examples:
json: $.A.Documents[*]
input: ^.B.ID
YAML doesn't assign any special meaning to those characters. As far as YAML is concerned, they are simply part of the content.
Of course, the software loading that YAML can do anything with the loaded data – including inspecting the loaded scalars for $ and ^ and implementing some action on them.
While someone might be able to correctly guess which software expects a YAML file like the one you show, it would be vastly easier for you to check the context in which you found that YAML file. This should lead you to the information you seek – i.e., for which software that YAML file has been written. That software's documentation will then describe how those characters are processed.
I was reading the template documentation of rsyslog to find better properties and I stumble upon this one:
spifno1stsp - expert options for RFC3164 template processing
However, as you can see, the documentation is quite vague. Moreover, I have not been able to find a longer explanation anywhere. The only mentions found with Google are always about the same snippet or the same very short description.
Indeed, there is no explanation of this property:
on the entire rsyslog.com website,
or in the RFC3164,
or anywhere else actually.
It is like everybody copy & paste the same snippet here and there but it is very difficult to understand what it is actually doing.
Any idea ?
Think of it as somewhat like an if statement. If a space is present, don't do anything. Otherwise, if a space is not present, add a space.
It is useful for ensuring that just one space is added to the output, often between two strings.
For any cases like this that you find where the docs can be improved please feel free to open an issue with a request for clarification in the official GitHub rsyslog documentation project. The documentation team is understaffed, but team members will assist where they can.
If you're looking for general help, the rsyslog-users mailing list is also a good resource. I've learned a lot over the years by going over the archives and reading prior threads.
Back to your question about the spifno1stsp option:
While you will get a few hits on that option, what you'll probably find more results on is searching for the older string template option, sp-if-no-1st-sp. Here is an example of its use from the documentation page you linked to:
template(name="forwardFormat" type="string"
string="<%PRI%>%TIMESTAMP:::date-rfc3339% %HOSTNAME% %syslogtag:1:32%%msg:::sp-if-no-1st-sp%%msg%"
)
Here is the specific portion that is relevant here:
`%msg:::sp-if-no-1st-sp%%msg%`
From the Property Replacer documentation:
sp-if-no-1st-sp
This option looks scary and should probably not be used by a user. For
any field given, it returns either a single space character or no
character at all. Field content is never returned. A space is returned
if (and only if) the first character of the field’s content is NOT a
space. This option is kind of a hack to solve a problem rooted in RFC
3164: 3164 specifies no delimiter between the syslog tag sequence and
the actual message text. Almost all implementation in fact delimit the
two by a space. As of RFC 3164, this space is part of the message text
itself. This leads to a problem when building the message (e.g. when
writing to disk or forwarding). Should a delimiting space be included
if the message does not start with one? If not, the tag is immediately
followed by another non-space character, which can lead some log
parsers to misinterpret what is the tag and what the message. The
problem finally surfaced when the klog module was restructured and the
tag correctly written. It exists with other message sources, too. The
solution was the introduction of this special property replacer
option. Now, the default template can contain a conditional space,
which exists only if the message does not start with one. While this
does not solve all issues, it should work good enough in the far
majority of all cases. If you read this text and have no idea of what
it is talking about - relax: this is a good indication you will never
need this option. Simply forget about it ;)
In short, sp-if-no-1st-sp (string template option) is analogous to spifno1stsp (standard template option).
Hope that helps.
In markdown I can write:
[example1][myid]
[example2][myid]
[myid]: http://example.com
so I don't have to retype the full external link multiple times.
Is there an analogous feature in AsciiDoc? Specially interested in the Asciidoctor implementation.
So far I could only find:
internal cross references with <<>>
I think I saw a replacement feature of type :myid:, but I can't find it anymore. And I didn't see how to use different texts for each link however.
Probably you mean something like this:
Userguide Chapter 28.1. Setting configuration entries
...
Attribute entries promote clarity and eliminate repetition
URLs and file names in AsciiDoc3 macros are often quite long — they break paragraph flow and readability suffers. The problem is compounded by redundancy if the same name is used repeatedly. Attribute entries can be used to make your documents easier to read and write, here are some examples:
:1: http://freshmeat.net/projects/asciidoc3/
:homepage: http://asciidoc3.org[AsciiDoc3 home page]
:new: image:./images/smallnew.png[]
:footnote1: footnote:[A meaningless latin term]
Using previously defined attributes: See the {1}[Freshmeat summary]
or the {homepage} for something new {new}. Lorem ispum {footnote1}.
...
BTW, there is a 100% Python3 port available now: https://asciidoc3.org
I think you are looking for this (and both will work just fine),
https://www.google.com[Google]
or
link: https://google.com[Google]
Reference:
Ascii Doc User Manual Link
Update #1: Use of link along with variables in asciidoc
Declare variable
:url: https://www.google.com
Use variable feature using format mentioned above
Using ' Link with label '
{url}[Google]
Using a relative link
link:{url}[Google]
I have a large source code where most of the documentation and source code comments are in english. But one of the minor contributors wrote comments in a different language, spread in various places.
Is there a simple trick that will let me find them ? I imagine first a way to extract all comments from the code and generate a single text file (with possible source file / line number info), then pipe this through some language detection app.
If that matters, I'm on Linux and the current compiler on this project is CLang.
The only thing that comes to mind is to go through all of the code manually and check it yourself. If it's a similar language, that doesn't contain foreign letters, consider using something with a spellchecker. This way, the text that isn't recognized will get underlined, and easy to spot.
Other than that, I don't see an easy way to go through with this.
You could make a program, that reads the files and only prints the comments out to another output file, where you then spell check that file, but this would seem to be a waste of time, as you would easily be able to spot the comments yourself.
If you do make a program for that, however, keep in mind that there are three things to check for:
If comment starts with /*, make sure it stops reading when encountering */
If comment starts with //, only read one line - unless:
If line starting with // ends with \, read next line as well
While it is possible to detect a language from a string automatically, you need way more words than fit in a usual comment to do so.
Solution: Use your own eyes and your own brain...
There appears to be a somewhat standard "descript.ion" file in Windows programs universe which provides meta data for all/some of the files in a given directory.
I know there are various programs which write this file (example: NewsBin, UseNet downloader) and read it (Example: "FAR", a file manager mimicking old Norton Commander).
I'm writing my own file indexer, and would like to add the ability to parse and use the info from "descript.ion" files.
The problem I have is that I have not been able to find an actual spec for the file, despine much googling.
I reverse engineered it as best I could, but I'm not certain whether I captured 100% of the possible details, so I figured I'd ask SO.
Here are example lines from the file:
"Rus Song1.mp3" SovietMus 1/2, rus_song#gmail.com, Fri Aug 08 00:46:27 2008
RusSong2.mp3 SovietMus 2/2, rus_song#gmail.com, Fri Aug 08 01:46:22 2008
As it seems the structure is:
First "token" is a file name.
If the token starts with any letter but double quote, the token ends at the first space character.
If the token starts with the double quote, the end of token is the following double quote
Not sure what happens if filename contains a double quote, IIRC it's illegal in Windows filesystems, so escaping the quote may be a moot question)
Last token (end of line to the very last comma moving backwards) is a timestamp.
Second to last token (the very last comma to second-to-last comma moving backwards) is the name of the poster from the Usenet newsgroup. I'm not quite sure what happens in generic format since the only descript.ion files I saw were from NewsBin that is obviously Usenet centric.
Everything in between is a description, in NewsBin's case coming from post's subject.
QUESTIONs:
Does anyone know of a bit more official "descript.ion" file spec/documentation?
(or, at elast, have your own knowledge of those files and can verify my spec)
Does anyone know of any other programs that read or write this file?
Thanks!
The description files on my system are from Total Commander as well. They follow the basic spec mentioned in the other answers:
Filename Text I typed to describe the file
"Long filename" Some text
Each line ends in a normal Windows line break.
In addition, the program stores multi-line comments as follows:
Filename This is the first line\\nSecond line\\nLast line\x04\xc2
Here, I mean that the descript.ion file contains a backslash and a letter 'n' where I typed a line break, and two special characters 04 C2 at the end of the comment. In addition, the line is ended by a Windows line break 0D 0A.
Apparently, the two extra characters at the end of the line signal the end of a multiline comment. If I remove them, the comment is rendered as a single line in the GUI, and the '\n' sequences are displayed literally.
The original usage of DESCRIPT.ION was to provide longer more descriptive names to 8.3 filenames; all it had was the shortname and a longer description. As you've found, others have co-opted the name with varying formats and usages. Frankly speaking, I don't think you'll find any specific commonality among the various usages.
Format is simple: FileName remainder of the line is a description of the file
https://jpsoft.com/ascii/descfile.txt
(Wayback Machine)
The descript.ion file is extensively used in the file management utility "total commander", a shareware found in www.ghisler.com. From version 7.5 of TC, it can have length of 4096 bytes. I have been using it extensively to annotate my files without any issues. You may look up different user's experience at the total commander users forum.
the answer above looks correct for me, just a addition:
from http://filext.com/file-extension/ION
The ION file type is primarily associated with '4DOS'. Note: Norton Utilities also uses 4DOS.
http://www.optimasc.com/products/fileid/4dos-descext.pdf
Collected links to 4DOS description-aware programs of all kind and 4DOS tools.
http://www.4dos.info/4tools.htm
http://drupal.org/node/289988