Ini Files - Read Multi Lines?

Question

I am aware that Ini Files are meant for single lines of information, needless to say I am trying to read/write multi lines to and from the Ini - without much success (I alwa

Answer 1

this code show you how to write and read multi lines with INI file

procedure TForm1.SaveButtonClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  IniFile.WriteString('Name', 'FirtName', FirstName.Text);
  IniFile.WriteString('Name', 'LastName', LastName.Text);
  IniFile.WriteInteger('Alpha Blend', 'Alpha Blend Value', Form1.AlphaBlendValue);
//Here start save Memo Lines
  LinesCount := AboutMemo.Lines.Count;
  IniFile.WriteInteger('About', 'Lines Count', LinesCount);
  for I := 0 to LinesCount-1 do
  IniFile.WriteString('About', 'About'+IntToStr(I), AboutMemo.Lines[i]);
end;

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin;
  GetCurrentDir;
  IniFile := TIniFile.Create(ChangeFileExt(Application.ExeName, '.ini'));
  FirstName.Text := IniFile.ReadString('Name', 'FirstName', '');
  LastName.Text := IniFile.ReadString('Name', 'LastName', '');
  Form1.AlphaBlendValue := IniFile.ReadInteger('Alpha Blend', 'Alpha Blend Value', 255);
//Here Start Read Memo Lins From INI File
  LinesCount := IniFile.ReadInteger('About', 'Lines Count', 0);
  for I := 0 to LinesCount-1 do
  AboutMemo.Lines.Insert(I, IniFile.ReadString('About', 'About'+IntToStr(I), ''));
end;
end.

Answer 2

You can use ReadSections method to get all the section names in ini file.

And perhaps you can use TMemIniFile's ReadSectionValues method to read "multiline values" (ie to read whole section into stringlist). If that doesn't work then perhaps you could use GetStrings to get the content of the ini file and parse it "semy manually" - IIRC it returns you a stringlist with section names where each item's object holds another stringlist with section data.

Answer 3

Pre-process the .ini file! Change all line-breaks between ] and [ to some character that will never appear in a filename (like asterisk). Then use TInifile to access the file you just preprocessed, changing the asterisks back to line breaks after you retrieve the strings. (Use StringReplace)

It's a little more complicated than that if you have more than one identifier in a section. In that case, you could use the equals sign as a flag that the preceding line break should not be removed. Maybe you read the file from the end towards the beginning.

You could even create a descendant of TIniFile that did the astrerisk-to-linebreak change for you.

No, this is certainly not an elegant solution. But, sometimes brute force like this works if you're stuck! The other solutions here are probably better, but thought I'd share this anyway in case it gives you a direction to think about heading...

Answer 4

@Ken White

FIni.ReadSectionValues get full string after same key, like "key=value".

In .ini like

[B Section]
Item1=Item B1
Item B2
Item B3
Item4=Item B4

and after

FIni.ReadSectionValues('B Section',Memo1.Lines);

Memo1.Lines will be {'Item1=Item B1', 'Item4=Item B4'}

---

Unfortunately, we can't read values directly, without any key. But in fact, it's not too difficult:

procedure TForm2.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var i:longint;
strtemp: TStringList;
begin
  FIni := TMemIniFile.Create(IniName);
  Memo1.Lines.Clear;
  Fini.ReadSection('B Section',strtemp);
for i:=0 to strtemp.Count-1 do
  Memo1.Items.Add(Fini.ReadString('B Section',strtemp[i],''));
end;

Memo1.Lines would be {'Item B1', 'Item B4'}

Upper method will read all values in section, without keys. How to read not-keyed values - I don't know (if at all it possible in .ini). As a solution for huge non-format .ini, just numerate all strings - read file like text file, find needed section and add same count index like a key, schematically(!):

FileString[i]:=inttostr(i)+'='+FileString[i];

If need mixed format, will require more complicated parser.

P.S. Sorry for my english, I'm not strong in it.

Answer 5

Using any TStrings descendent object you can just use the CommaText property to read and write all the lines as a single string.

MyStrings.CommaText := IniFile.ReadString('Section', 'Ident');

and

IniFile.WriteString('Section', 'Ident', MyStrings.CommaText);

CommaText is smart enough to handle lines containing commas by automatically embracing them in quotes.

Answer 6

Do not store multi-line strings into an INI file to begin with. Escape the line breaks, like @RobertFrank suggested. I would not use an asterik for that, though, as that is a valid text character. I would use something like this instead:

[richardmarx] 
Filenames=hazard%nchildren of the night%nright here waiting

You can then read the string and replace the %n sequences with the value of the sLineBreak global variable. If you needed to store an actual % character, escape it as %%, eg:

[sales] 
value=Sale! 50%% off%nat Macy's