# asciigoat's INI parser

[![Go Reference][godoc-badge]][godoc]
[![Go Report Card][goreport-badge]][goreport]

`asciigoat.org/ini` is a simple Go library that very loosly parses
[`INI`-style][wikipedia-dosini] documents allowing the implementation
of stricter parsers of similar form.

**asciigoat** is [MIT](https://opensource.org/license/mit/) licensed.

[godoc]: https://pkg.go.dev/asciigoat.org/ini
[godoc-badge]: https://pkg.go.dev/badge/asciigoat.org/ini.svg
[goreport]: https://goreportcard.com/report/asciigoat.org/ini
[goreport-badge]: https://goreportcard.com/badge/asciigoat.org/ini

[godoc-lexer]: https://pkg.go.dev/asciigoat.org/core/lexer
[godoc-parser-parser]: https://pkg.go.dev/asciigoat.org/ini/parser#Parser
[godoc-basic-parser]: https://pkg.go.dev/asciigoat.org/ini/basic#Decode

[wikipedia-dosini]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file

## Parser

[`parser.Parser`][godoc-parser-parser] uses
[`asciigoat`'s lexer][godoc-lexer] to process an `INI`-style document
emiting tokens and errors via callbacks.

## Basic Parser

[`basic.Decode()`][godoc-basic-parser] provies a one-shot decoder
that returns a structured document for you to post-process.

To allow for correct handling of repetition of section and field names downstream,
it uses arrays instead of maps, and makes almost no judgment
about what section or field names are acceptable.

## Other Implementations

Other implementations exist, and they are mature and feature-rich, but they
are highly opinionated about what's a valid file. Built around maps they don't
allow repeating names and constraint what characters can be used.

These are great when you can adapt, or already agree, to their conditions but
that's not always the case when you are parsing configuration files from
other applications and that's what [asciigoat.org/ini][godoc] attempts to solve.

* [gcfg](https://pkg.go.dev/gopkg.in/gcfg.v1)
* [unknwon's go-ini](https://github.com/go-ini/ini)
* [wlevene's GoINI](https://github.com/wlevene/ini)

## See also

* [asciigoat.org/core](https://asciigoat.org/core)
* [oss.jpi.io](https://oss.jpi.io)
* [INI file][wikipedia-dosini] (_wikipedia_)
* [TOML](https://www.kelche.co/blog/go/toml/)