IniRead bug or expected behaviour? Reading keys from duplicated sections

[ilko]

Windows 2000/XP/2003 setup, in particular parsing txtsetup.sif, allows multiple sections with the same name, for example:

txtsetup.sif:

[Strings]
wkscd   = "Windows 2000 Professional CD"

[SetupData]
SetupSourcePath ="\WINSETUP\GENSP4\"
MajorVersion = 5
MinorVersion = 0
DefaultPath=\WINNT

[Strings]
wks_id       = "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional"

IniRead seem to read just the first section:

MsgBox(0,"",IniRead("txtsetup.sif", "Strings", "wks_id", "Not found"))

Returns "Not Found".

Is this expected behaviour or a bug/limitation?

Any quick way to resolve similar issues?

Just updated to AutoIt v3.3.6.1 and got the same result.

Searched the forums and the bug tracker, but couldn't find this issue addressed.

[enaiman]

I'd say it is intended behaviour and not a bug whatsoever. It is the simpleast and easiest way to deal with an ini file and it should stay the same.

As a workaround: you can search for duplicate sections and rename one of them.

Here is a proof of concept:

#include<array.au3>
Global $Ini
$tt = IniReadSectionNames($Ini)
_ArrayDisplay($tt)
For $i=1 To UBound($tt)-1
    For $j=1 To UBound($tt)-1
        If $tt[$i] = $tt[$j] Then
            IniRenameSection($Ini, $tt[$i], $tt[$i]&"_1")
            $tt[$i] = $tt[$i]&"_1"
        EndIf
    Next
Next
$tt = IniReadSectionNames($Ini)
_ArrayDisplay($tt)

Test it and see what it does (on a copy of your ini file of course ).

Note: my script handles successfully only 1 duplicate; if you have 2 or more duplicates, you will need to modify the script.

Edited April 20, 2010 by enaiman

[ilko]

Thanks for reply.

I am afraid I won't be able to rename sections, this is allowed (and often used) syntax according to (silly) MS rules for this particular case.

Merging them into a single one is fine, but leaving that as a last resort, if no other quick solutions exist.

Edited April 20, 2010 by ilko

[enaiman]

That's too bad.

It looks to me that you have 2 ways to deal with this:

- merge the sections (the easiest one)

- deal with this not the "ini" way but read the whole file to an array and use array elements. This isn't as easy but it is doable.

Good luck,

[jchd]

Everything is a bit fuzzy in this area. Not having any written specification for .INI and .SIF makes it possible that anyone invents some "clever" use that would break other products.

Say there are "conforming" (conforming to what is a mystery) .INI files which stick to the rules of unique section name (in one block) no multi-valued keys, ...

"Non-conforming" .INI may have dupplicate section names (or sections split in several blocks, depending on how they see it), multiple values in one key, multi-line keys, ...

Same for .SIF, where MS clearly changed its own .INI rules (split sections and the like)

It's not obvious that you can merge or otherwise rearrange split sections harmlessly in every file type. Some INI or SIF or similar "consumer" might expect things in a particular order, e.g.

[Product]

name=Product A...

...

[DLLs]

dll = some path,,, abc.dll

dll = another path , 2, 0, def.dll

.../...

[Product]

name=Product A...

...

[DLLs]

dll = some path,,, abc123.dll

dll = another path , 2, 0, def.dll

Here the installer relies on DLLs section following every Product section. Should you merge that all blindly, that becames a useless mess.

The .INI support in AutoIt is only dealing with "Conforming" .INI, excluding any derivative format.

You might find this post of use to deal with your problem.

[ilko]

Thank you both for your answers.