Authorization Service: INI Configuration File Syntax

Description

The authorization service uses standard INI files for most of its configuration. INI files are basically key/value property files with the additional concept of grouping or sections in order to provide some scoping mechanisms to the properties.

File Syntax

An INI file contains three basic types of information; comments, sections, and properties.

A comment is a single line starting with the characters '#' (hash) or ';' (semicolon). It is not interpreted by the parser. The following example gives an INI file with just a comment in it.

# Start of INI file

A section is always declared between '[' and ']' characters. The string betwixt those characters are the section name. Section names should only include alphanumeric characters plus '.' (period), '_' (underscore), and '-' (hyphen). One section ends when another section begins. The following example gives an INI file with comments and sections in it.

# Start of INI file
[SECTION1]
# Start of section named SECTION1
# End of section named SECTION1
[section-2]
# Start of section named section-2

A property is a key value pair with the key being declared first followed be an '=' (equal) and then the value. Keys should only include alphanumeric characters plus '.' (period), '_' (underscore), and '-' (hyphen) while values may include any visible ASCII character plus a space or tab. Properties belong to the section in which they are declared.

The following example gives an INI file with comments, sections, and properties.

# Start of INI file
[SECTION1]
# Start of section named SECTION1
prop1 = value1
prop2 = value2
# End of section named SECTION1
[section-2]
# Start of section named section-2
prop2 = value3