Hello All!

 

Is it possible to parse an INI file with the program options without specifying what is in the INI file first (using options_descriptions)?

 

I already use the program_options library to handle command line and config file based options, but what I’m looking for now is a more traditional ini file interaction. By that I mean where you simply read in the ini file and then can access the category/entry value with something like:

            INIFile iniFile(“MyINIFile.ini”);

            int myInt = iniFile[“Category”][“EntryName”].get<int>(3); // 3 is the default if entry not found

 

In my case, these are options that the user does not need to know about and can only be specified through the configuration file. Therefore, much of the data that is in the options_description is redundant.

 

I’ve been looking around, and it seems that the parse_config_file() is the standard function to call to parse an INI file, however, that takes an options_description object as the second parameter.

 

I did see in boost/program_options/detail/config_file.hpp where it talks about being able to read standard ini files and how the sections and entries are accessed. Unfortunately, that’s buried in the “details” and I don’t see any part of the public interface that would allow me to access the ini file.

 

I did read a little about the property_tree library, but that is only available in CVS and I would prefer to stick with one library to handle the program’s configuration. Similarly, I have seen plenty of other config libraries out there, but I would prefer to stick with program_options if it can do the job.

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Regards,

Daniel