boost::program_options - how to handle multiple sections with the same name in INI file

Question

In a config like below; is there a way to handle individual sections.

I am looking for a way to validate individual "server" sections below, in a reliable manner.

[basic]
number_of_servers=3

[server]
ip=10.20.30.40
password=sdfslkhf    

[server]
ip=10.20.30.41
password=sdfslkhf

[server]
ip=10.20.30.42
password=sdfslkhf

[server]
password=sdfslkhf

[server]
ip=10.20.30.42

Answer 1

When using boost::program_options to parse a INI file, the option names must be prefixed by their enclosing section names.

In other words, sections are part of the option 'identifier', but I don't think you have a way to identify to which section a given server.ip variable belongs (and thus, which is the associated server.password).

I think you should consider Boost.PropertyTree (which also supports INI file parsing) for this task.

Answer 2

From here:

The option names are relative to the section names, so the following configuration file part:

  [gui.accessibility]
  visual_bell=yes

is equivalent to

  gui.accessibility.visual_bell=yes

But there is currently no way to distinguish sections with the same name.

UPDATE:

Qt's QSettings usually solves this by postfixing values (sections?) from an array with "/n". So you could use:

[server/0]
...
[server/1]
...
[server/2]
...