.ini files are commonly used in applications on various platforms. There is no standard for .ini files and the applications can vary in their use of

• key-value delimiters
• comment masks
• comment positions
• section nesting
• support for a blank line

So, Lingohub has applied the following rules for.ini files, which should match common variations.

Format

• Key-value pairs are delimited with the equal character = or colon : and terminated by a new line.
• Values can not be spread to multiple lines.
• Section declarations can have this form: [section].
• All keys after the section declaration are associated with that section.
• There is no explicit “end of section” delimiter, and sections end at the end of the next section declaration or the end of the file.
• Sections can not be nested.
• The segment key will be a combination of the section and segment keys, and this combination must be unique
• Placeholders are not supported because there is no standardized format. This means Lingohub cannot detect placeholders and cannot provide quality check support.
  However, please contact our support to define a placeholder syntax.
• Comment lines can start with a hash sign # or semicolon ;; everything up to the end of the line is treated as a comment.
• A comment is assigned to the next key-value pair unless there are any blank lines or section declarations in between.

Examples

Additional example files can be accessed here.

; this comment is ignored because it is not directly followed by a key-value pair

; this comment will be stored along with the section information
[section1]

; comments in .ini files can start with hash
hello_user = Hello stranger!

[section2]
; this key belongs to section2 and no longer to section1
welcome_message = Welcome back, we have missed you

; multi line comments belong to the next key value pair
; as long as they are not interrupted by a white line
visit_count = this is your millionth visit to our site

References

• INI file on en.wikipedia.org