NAME Config::Tiny - Read/Write .ini style files with as little code as possible SYNOPSIS # In your configuration file rootproperty=blah [section] one=twp three= four Foo =Bar empty= # In your program use Config::Tiny; # Create a config my $Config = Config::Tiny->new(); # Open the config $Config = Config::Tiny->read( 'file.conf' ); # Reading properties my $rootproperty = $Config->{_}->{rootproperty}; my $one = $Config->{section}->{one}; my $Foo = $Config->{section}->{Foo}; # Changing data $Config->{newsection} = { this => 'that' }; # Add a section $Config->{section}->{Foo} = 'Not Bar!'; # Change a value delete $Config->{_}; # Delete a value or section # Save a config $Config->write( 'file.conf' ); DESCRIPTION Config::Tiny is a perl class to read and write .ini style configuration files with as little code as possible, reducing load time and memory overhead. Memory usage is normally scoffed at in Perl, but in my opinion should be at least kept in mind. This module is primarily for reading human written files, and anything we write shouldn't need to have documentation/comments. If you need something with more power, move up to Config::Simple, Config::General or one of the many other Config:: modules. To rephrase, Config::Tiny does not preserve your comments, whitespace, or the order of your config file. CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX Files are the same as windows .ini files, for example. [section] var1=value1 var2=value2 If a property is outside of a section, it will be assigned to the root section, available at "$Config->{_}". Lines starting with '#' or ';' are comments, and blank lines are ignored. When writing back to the config file, any comments are discarded. METHODS new() The constructor "new()" creates and returns an empty Config::Tiny object. read( $filename ) The "read()" constructor reads a config file, and returns a new Config::Tiny object containing the properties in the file. Returns the object on success, or "undef" on error. read_string( $string ); The "read_string()" takes as argument the contents of a config file as a string and returns the Config::Tiny object for it. write() The "write( $filename )" generates the file for the properties, and writes it to disk. Returns true on success or "undef" on error. write_string() Generates the file for the object and returns it as a string. errstr() When an error occurs, you can retrieve the error message either from the $Config::Tiny::errstr variable, or using the "errstr()" method. SUPPORT Contact the author TO DO I'm debating adding a get and set method to get or set a section.key based value... To make this smaller still, it could be implemented in C/XS, although this would destroy portability. I nominate the namespace Config::Tinier for this. Implementation is left as an exercise for the reader. AUTHOR Adam Kennedy ( maintainer ) cpan@ali.as http://ali.as/ Thanks to Sherzod Ruzmetov for Config::Simple, which inspired this module. SEE ALSO Config::Simple, Config::General COPYRIGHT Copyright (c) 2002-2003 Adam Kennedy. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.