IniRead

Reads a value, section or list of section names from a standard format .ini file.

Value := IniRead(Filename, Section, Key , Default)
Section := IniRead(Filename, Section ,, Default)
SectionNames := IniRead(Filename ,,, Default)

Parameters

Filename

Type: String

The name of the .ini file, which is assumed to be in A_WorkingDir if an absolute path isn't specified.

Section

Type: String

The section name in the .ini file, which is the heading phrase that appears in square brackets (do not include the brackets in this parameter).

Key

Type: String

The key name in the .ini file.

Default

Type: String

If omitted, an OSError is thrown on failure. Otherwise, specify the value to return on failure, such as if the requested key, section or file is not found.

Return Value

Type: String

This function returns one of the following depending on the Key and Section parameters:

• If both parameters are specified, this function returns the actual value of the specified key.
• If Key is omitted, this function returns an entire section. Comments and empty lines are omitted. Only the first 65,533 characters of the section are retrieved.
• If Key and Section are omitted, this function returns a linefeed (`n) delimited list of section names.

If none of these can be retrieved, the default value indicated by the Default parameter is returned.

Error Handling

An OSError is thrown on failure, but only if Default is omitted.

Regardless of whether an exception is thrown, A_LastError is set to the result of the operating system's GetLastError() function.

Remarks

The operating system automatically omits leading and trailing spaces/tabs from the retrieved string. To prevent this, enclose the string in single or double quote marks. The outermost set of single or double quote marks is also omitted, but any spaces inside the quote marks are preserved.

Values longer than 65,535 characters are likely to yield inconsistent results.

A standard ini file looks like:

[SectionName]
Key=Value

Unicode: IniRead and IniWrite rely on the external functions GetPrivateProfileString and WritePrivateProfileString to read and write values. These functions support Unicode only in UTF-16 files; all other files are assumed to use the system's default ANSI code page.

Related

IniDelete, IniWrite, RegRead, file-reading loop, FileRead

Examples

Value := IniRead("C:\Temp\myfile.ini", "section2", "key")
MsgBox "The value is " Value