Parsing an "advanced" INI file with PHP

Question

Basically, I would like a simple, easy, one-file way to parse an INI file with "advanced" features, like section inheritance and property nesting, like Zend_Config_Ini.

For example:

[foo]
a = 1
b.a = 2
b.b = 3
b.c = 4
c = 5

[bar : foo]
b.b = 17
c = 42

Would parse into

array(
  'foo'=>array(
    'a'=>'1',
    'b'=>array(
      'a'=>'2',
      'b'=>'3',
      'c'=>'4'
    ),
    'c'=>'5'
  ),
  'bar'=>array(
    'a'=>'1',
    'b'=>array(
      'a'=>'2',
      'b'=>'17',
      'c'=>'4'
    ),
    'c'=>'42'
  )
)

PHP's built-in parse_ini_file, doesn't handle anything other than simple INI's with simple sections and simple keys.

My problem with using Zend_Config_Ini is that I would have to include virtually the whole Zend_Config subpackage, and is super-bloated and configurable.

Is there a small and simple library available to parse this?
If not, is there an easy implementation I'm not seeing?

By small and simple, I mean something like the sfYaml of INI files.

To my (very inexperienced) eyes, I would have to parse through once with parse_ini_file, then come back and resolve inheritance, then run through each section and expand the keys recursively...

UPDATE: Since this seems to be a popular question, I would like to note that I have a simple class implementing this on GitHub, feel free to send pull requests, issues, etc.

Answer 1

Not sure if I should edit my old answer or add a new one.

Try this version of it, should be what you're looking for.

function parse_ini_advanced($array) {
    $returnArray = array();
    if (is_array($array)) {
        foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
            $e = explode(':', $key);
            if (!empty($e[1])) {
                $x = array();
                foreach ($e as $tk => $tv) {
                    $x[$tk] = trim($tv);
                }
                $x = array_reverse($x, true);
                foreach ($x as $k => $v) {
                    $c = $x[0];
                    if (empty($returnArray[$c])) {
                        $returnArray[$c] = array();
                    }
                    if (isset($returnArray[$x[1]])) {
                        $returnArray[$c] = array_merge($returnArray[$c], $returnArray[$x[1]]);
                    }
                    if ($k === 0) {
                        $returnArray[$c] = array_merge($returnArray[$c], $array[$key]);
                    }
                }
            } else {
                $returnArray[$key] = $array[$key];
            }
        }
    }
    return $returnArray;
}
function recursive_parse($array)
{
    $returnArray = array();
    if (is_array($array)) {
        foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
            if (is_array($value)) {
                $array[$key] = recursive_parse($value);
            }
            $x = explode('.', $key);
            if (!empty($x[1])) {
                $x = array_reverse($x, true);
                if (isset($returnArray[$key])) {
                    unset($returnArray[$key]);
                }
                if (!isset($returnArray[$x[0]])) {
                    $returnArray[$x[0]] = array();
                }
                $first = true;
                foreach ($x as $k => $v) {
                    if ($first === true) {
                        $b = $array[$key];
                        $first = false;
                    }
                    $b = array($v => $b);
                }
                $returnArray[$x[0]] = array_merge_recursive($returnArray[$x[0]], $b[$x[0]]);
            } else {
                $returnArray[$key] = $array[$key];
            }
        }
    }
    return $returnArray;
}

Would be called like this:

$array = parse_ini_file('test.ini', true);
$array = recursive_parse(parse_ini_advanced($array));

This could be done a lot better/clearer but for a simple solution it should work just fine.

If your config is:

[foo]
a = 1
b.a = 2
b.b = 3
b.c = 4
c = 5

[bar : foo]
b.x.c = 33
b.b = 17
c = 42

[hot : bar : foo]
b.a = 83
b.d = 23

The output should be:

Array
(
[foo] => Array
    (
        [a] => 1
        [b] => Array
            (
                [a] => 2
                [b] => 3
                [c] => 4
            )

        [c] => 5
    )

[bar] => Array
    (
        [a] => 1
        [b] => Array
            (
                [a] => 2
                [b] => 17
                [c] => 4
                [x] => Array
                    (
                        [c] => 33
                    )

            )

        [c] => 42
    )

[hot] => Array
    (
        [a] => 1
        [b] => Array
            (
                [a] => 83
                [b] => 17
                [c] => 4
                [x] => Array
                    (
                        [c] => 33
                    )

                [d] => 23
            )

        [c] => 42
    )
)