# # Config::General.pm - Generic Config Module # # Purpose: Provide a convenient way # for loading config values from a # given file and return it as hash # structure # # Copyright (c) 2000-2001 Thomas Linden . # All Rights Reserved. Std. disclaimer applies. # Artificial License, same as perl itself. Have fun. # # namespace package Config::General; use FileHandle; use strict; use Carp; $Config::General::VERSION = "1.24"; sub new { # # create new Config::General object # my($this, @param ) = @_; my($configfile); my $class = ref($this) || $this; my $self = {}; bless($self,$class); $self->{level} = 1; if ($#param >= 1) { # use of the new hash interface! my %conf = @param; $configfile = delete $conf{-file} if(exists $conf{-file}); $configfile = delete $conf{-hash} if(exists $conf{-hash}); if (exists $conf{-AllowMultiOptions} ) { if ($conf{-AllowMultiOptions} =~ /^no$/) { $self->{NoMultiOptions} = 1; } } if (exists $conf{-LowerCaseNames}) { if ($conf{-LowerCaseNames}) { $self->{LowerCaseNames} = 1; } } # contributed by Thomas Klausner if (exists $conf{-UseApacheInclude}) { if ($conf{-UseApacheInclude}) { $self->{UseApacheInclude} = 1; } } } elsif ($#param == 0) { # use of the old style $configfile = $param[0]; } else { # this happens if $#param == -1, thus no param was given to new! $self->{config} = {}; return $self; } # process as usual if (ref($configfile) eq "HASH") { # initialize with given hash $self->{config} = $configfile; $self->{parsed} = 1; } else { # open the file and read the contents in $self->{configfile} = $configfile; $self->_open($self->{configfile}); # now, we parse immdediately, getall simply returns the whole hash $self->{config} = $self->_parse({}, $self->{content}); } return $self; } sub getall { # # just return the whole config hash # my($this) = @_; return (exists $this->{config} ? %{$this->{config}} : () ); } sub _open { # # open the config file # and store it's contents in @content # my($this, $configfile) = @_; my(@content, $c_comment, $longline, $hier, $hierend, @hierdoc); local $_; my $fh = new FileHandle; if (-e $configfile) { open $fh, "<$configfile" or croak "Could not open $configfile!($!)\n"; while (<$fh>) { chomp; # patch by "Manuel Valente" : if (!$hierend) { s/(?{content}}, $hier; # push it onto the content stack @hierdoc = (); undef $hier; undef $hierend; } elsif (/^\s*\/\*/) { # the beginning of a C-comment ("/*"), from now on ignore everything. if (/\*\/\s*$/) { # C-comment end is already there, so just ignore this line! $c_comment = 0; } else { $c_comment = 1; } } elsif (/\*\//) { if (!$c_comment) { warn "invalid syntax: found end of C-comment without previous start!\n"; } $c_comment = 0; # the current C-comment ends here, go on } elsif (/\\$/) { # a multiline option, indicated by a trailing backslash chop; s/^\s*//; $longline .= $_ if(!$c_comment); # store in $longline } else { # any "normal" config lines if ($longline) { # previous stuff was a longline and this is the last line of the longline s/^\s*//; $longline .= $_ if(!$c_comment); push @{$this->{content}}, $longline; # push it onto the content stack undef $longline; } elsif ($hier) { # we are inside a here-doc push @hierdoc, $_; # push onto here-dco stack } else { if (/^<>$/) { # include external config file $this->_open($1) if(!$c_comment); # call _open with the argument to include assuming it is a filename } elsif ((/^[Ii]nclude (.+?)$/) && ($this->{UseApacheInclude})) { # contributed by Thomas Klausner # include external config file, Apache Style # call _open with the argument to include assuming it is a filename $this->_open($1) if(!$c_comment); } else { # standard config line, push it onto the content stack push @{$this->{content}}, $_ if(!$c_comment); } } } } close $fh; } else { croak "The file \"$configfile\" does not exist!\n"; } return 1; } sub _parse { # # parse the contents of the file # my($this, $config, $content) = @_; my(@newcontent, $block, $blockname, $grab, $chunk,$block_level); local $_; foreach (@{$content}) { # loop over content stack chomp; $chunk++; $_ =~ s/^\s*//; # strip spaces @ end and begin $_ =~ s/\s*$//; my ($option,$value) = split /\s*=\s*|\s+/, $_, 2; # option/value assignment, = is optional my $indichar = chr(182); # ¶, inserted by _open, our here-doc indicator $value =~ s/^$indichar// if($value); # a here-doc begin, remove indicator if ($value && $value =~ /^"/ && $value =~ /"$/) { $value =~ s/^"//; # remove leading and trailing " $value =~ s/"$//; } if (!$block) { # not inside a block @ the moment if (/^<([^\/]+?.*?)>$/) { # look if it is a block $this->{level} += 1; $block = $1; # store block name ($grab, $blockname) = split /\s\s*/, $block, 2; # is it a named block? if yes, store the name separately if ($blockname) { $block = $grab; } $block = lc($block) if $this->{LowerCaseNames}; # only for blocks lc(), if configured via new() undef @newcontent; next; } elsif (/^<\/(.+?)>$/) { # it is an end block, but we don't have a matching block! croak "EndBlock \"<\/$1>\" has no StartBlock statement (level: $this->{level}, chunk $chunk)!\n"; } else { # insert key/value pair into actual node $option = lc($option) if $this->{LowerCaseNames}; if ($this->{NoMultiOptions}) { # configurable via special method ::NoMultiOptions() if (exists $config->{$option}) { croak "Option \"$option\" occurs more than once (level: $this->{level}, chunk $chunk)!\n"; } $config->{$option} = $value; } else { if (exists $config->{$option}) { # value exists more than once, make it an array if (ref($config->{$option}) ne "ARRAY") { # convert scalar to array my $savevalue = $config->{$option}; delete $config->{$option}; push @{$config->{$option}}, $savevalue; } push @{$config->{$option}}, $value; # it's already an array, just push } else { $config->{$option} = $value; # standard config option, insert key/value pair into node } } } } elsif (/^<([^\/]+?.*?)>$/) { # found a start block inside a block, don't forget it $block_level++; # $block_level indicates wether we are still inside a node push @newcontent, $_; # push onto new content stack for later recursive call of _parse() } elsif (/^<\/(.+?)>$/) { if ($block_level) { # this endblock is not the one we are searching for, decrement and push $block_level--; # if it is 0, then the endblock was the one we searched for, see below push @newcontent, $_; # push onto new content stack } else { # calling myself recursively, end of $block reached, $block_level is 0 if ($blockname) { # a named block, make it a hashref inside a hash within the current node if (exists $config->{$block}->{$blockname}) { # the named block already exists, make it an array if ($this->{NoMultiOptions}) { croak "Named block \"<$block $blockname>\" occurs more than once (level: $this->{level}, chunk $chunk)!\n"; } else { # preserve existing data my $savevalue = $config->{$block}->{$blockname}; delete $config->{$block}->{$blockname}; my @ar; if (ref $savevalue eq "ARRAY") { push @ar, @{$savevalue}; # preserve array if any } else { push @ar, $savevalue; } push @ar, $this->_parse( {}, \@newcontent); # append it $config->{$block}->{$blockname} = \@ar; } } else { # the first occurence of this particular named block $config->{$block}->{$blockname} = $this->_parse($config->{$block}->{$blockname}, \@newcontent); } } else { # standard block if (exists $config->{$block}) { # the block already exists, make it an array if ($this->{NoMultiOptions}) { croak "Block \"<$block>\" occurs more than once (level: $this->{level}, chunk $chunk)!\n"; } else { my $savevalue = $config->{$block}; delete $config->{$block}; my @ar; if (ref $savevalue eq "ARRAY") { push @ar, @{$savevalue}; } else { push @ar, $savevalue; } push @ar, $this->_parse( {}, \@newcontent); $config->{$block} = \@ar; } } else { # the first occurence of this particular block $config->{$block} = $this->_parse($config->{$block}, \@newcontent); } } undef $blockname; undef $block; $this->{level} -= 1; next; } } else { # inside $block, just push onto new content stack push @newcontent, $_; } } if ($block) { # $block is still defined, which means, that it had # no matching endblock! croak "Block \"<$block>\" has no EndBlock statement (level: $this->{level}, chunk $chunk)!\n"; } return $config; } sub NoMultiOptions { # # turn NoMultiOptions off, still exists for backward compatibility. # Since we do parsing from within new(), we must # call it again if one turns NoMultiOptions on! # my($this) = @_; $this->{NoMultiOptions} = 1; $this->{config} = $this->_parse({}, $this->{content}); } sub save { # # save the config back to disk # my($this,$file, %config) = @_; my $fh = new FileHandle; open $fh, ">$file" or croak "Could not open $file!($!)\n"; $this->_store($fh, 0,%config); } sub _store { # # internal sub for saving a block # my($this, $fh, $level, %config) = @_; local $_; my $indent = " " x $level; foreach my $entry (sort keys %config) { if (ref($config{$entry}) eq "ARRAY") { foreach my $line (@{$config{$entry}}) { $line =~ s/#/\\#/g; print $fh $indent . $entry . " " . $line . "\n"; } } elsif (ref($config{$entry}) eq "HASH") { print $fh $indent . "<" . $entry . ">\n"; $this->_store($fh, $level + 1, %{$config{$entry}}); print $fh $indent . "\n"; } else { # scalar if ($config{$entry} =~ /\n/) { # it is a here doc my @lines = split /\n/, $config{$entry}; print $fh $indent . $entry . " <getall; # or $conf = new Config::General(\%somehash); =head1 DESCRIPTION This module opens a config file and parses it's contents for you. The B method requires one parameter which needs to be a filename. The method B returns a hash which contains all options and it's associated values of your config file. The format of config files supported by B is inspired by the well known apache config format, in fact, this module is 100% compatible to apache configs, but you can also just use simple name/value pairs in your config files. In addition to the capabilities of an apache config file it supports some enhancements such as here-documents, C-style comments or multiline options. =head1 METHODS =over =item new() Possible ways to call B: $conf = new Config::General("rcfile"); $conf = new Config::General(\%somehash); $conf = new Config::General( -file => "rcfile", -AllowMultiOptions => "no", -LowerCaseNames => "yes", -UseApacheInclude => 1 ); $conf = new Config::General( -hash => \%somehash, ); This method returns a B object (a hash blessed into "Config::General" namespace. All further methods must be used from that returned object. see below. You can use the new style with hash parameters or the old style which is of course still supported. Possible parameters are: a filename of a configfile a hash reference or a hash with one or more of the following keys set: -file - a filename. -hash - a hash reference. -AllowMultiOptions - if the value is "no", then multiple identical options are disallowed. -LowerCaseNames - if true (1 or "yes") then all options found in the config will be converted to lowercase. This allows you to provide case-in-sensitive configs -UseApacheInclude - consider "include ..." as valid include statement (just like the well known apache include statement). =item NoMultiOptions() This method only exists for compatibility reasons. Now you should set the new() flag B<-AllowMultiOptions> to "no". =over =item The old description: This Turns off the feature of allwing multiple options with identical names. The default behavior is to create an array if an option occurs more than once. But under certain circumstances you may not be willed to allow that. In this case use this method before you call B to turn it off. =back Please note, that there is no method provided to turn this feature on. =item getall() Returns a hash structure which represents the whole config. =item save("filename", %confighash) Writes the config hash back to the harddisk. Please note, that any occurence of comments will be ignored and thus be lost after you called this method. You need also to know that named blocks will be converted to nested blocks (which is the same from the perl point of view). An example: id 13 will become the following after saving: id 13 =back =head1 CONFIG FILE FORMAT Lines begining with B<#> and empty lines will be ignored. (see section COMMENTS!) Spaces at the begining and the end of a line will also be ignored as well as tabulators. If you need spaces at the end or the beginning of a value you can use apostrophs B<">. An optionline starts with it's name followed by a value. An equalsign is optional. Some possible examples: user max user = max user max If there are more than one statements with the same name, it will create an array instead of a scalar. See the example below. The method B returns a hash of all values. =head1 BLOCKS You can define a B of options. A B looks much like a block in the wellknown apache config format. It starts with EBE and ends with E/BE. An example: host = muli user = moare dbname = modb dbpass = D4r_9Iu Blocks can also be nested. Here is a more complicated example: user = hans server = mc200 db = maxis passwd = D3rf$ user = tom db = unknown host = mila index int(100000) name char(100) prename char(100) city char(100) status int(10) allowed moses allowed ingram allowed joice The hash which the method B returns look like that: print Data::Dumper(\%hash); $VAR1 = { 'passwd' => 'D3rf$', 'jonas' => { 'tablestructure' => { 'prename' => 'char(100)', 'index' => 'int(100000)', 'city' => 'char(100)', 'name' => 'char(100)', 'status' => 'int(10)', 'allowed' => [ 'moses', 'ingram', 'joice', ] }, 'host' => 'mila', 'db' => 'unknown', 'user' => 'tom' }, 'db' => 'maxis', 'server' => 'mc200', 'user' => 'hans' }; If you have turned on B<-LowerCaseNames> (see new()) then blocks as in the following example: Owner root would produce the following hash structure: $VAR1 = { 'dir' => { 'attributes' => { 'owner => "root", } } }; As you can see, the keys inside the config hash are normalized. Please note, that the above config block would result in a valid hash structure, even if B<-LowerCaseNames> is not set! This is because I does not use the blocknames to check if a block ends, instead it uses an internal state counter, which indicates a block end. If the module cannot find an end-block statement, then this block will be ignored. =head1 NAMED BLOCKS If you need multiple blocks of the same name, then you have to name every block. This works much like apache config. If the module finds a named block, it will create a hashref with the left part of the named block as the key containing one or more hashrefs with the right part of the block as key containing everything inside the block(which may again be nested!). As examples says more than words: # given the following sample Limit Deny Options ExecCgi Index Limit DenyAll Options None # you will get: $VAR1 = { 'Directory' => { '/usr/frik' => { 'Options' => 'None', 'Limit' => 'DenyAll' }, '/usr/frisco' => { 'Options' => 'ExecCgi Index', 'Limit' => 'Deny' } } }; You cannot have more than one named block with the same name because it will be stored in a hashref and therefore be overwritten if a block occurs once more. =head1 IDENTICAL OPTIONS You may have more than one line of the same option with different values. Example: log log1 log log2 log log2 You will get a scalar if the option occured only once or an array if it occured more than once. If you expect multiple identical options, then you may need to check if an option occured more than once: $allowed = $hash{jonas}->{tablestructure}->{allowed}; if(ref($allowed) eq "ARRAY") { @ALLOWED = @{$allowed}; else { @ALLOWED = ($allowed); } The same applies to blocks and named blocks too (they are described in more detail below). For example, if you have the following config: user max user hannes then you would end up with a data structure like this: $VAR1 = { 'dir' => { 'blah' => [ { 'user' => 'max' }, { 'user' => 'hannes' } ] } }; As you can see, the two identical blocks are stored in a hash which contains an array(-reference) of hashes. If you don't want to allow more than one identical options, you may turn it off by setting the flag I in the B method to "no". If turned off, Config::General will complain about multiple occuring options whit identical names! =head1 LONG LINES If you have a config value, which is too long and would take more than one line, you can break it into multiple lines by using the backslash character at the end of the line. The Config::General module will concatenate those lines to one single-value. Example: command = cat /var/log/secure/tripwire | \ mail C<-s> "report from tripwire" \ honey@myotherhost.nl command will become: "cat /var/log/secure/tripwire | mail C<-s> 'report from twire' honey@myotherhost.nl" =head1 HERE DOCUMENTS You can also define a config value as a so called "here-document". You must tell the module an identifier which identicates the end of a here document. An identifier must follow a "<<". Example: message <. There is a special feature which allows you to use indentation with here documents. You can have any amount of whitespaces or tabulators in front of the end identifier. If the module finds spaces or tabs then it will remove exactly those amount of spaces from every line inside the here-document. Example: message <> If you turned on B<-UseApacheInclude> (see B), then you can also use the following statement to include an external file: include externalconfig.rc This file will be inserted at the position where it was found as if the contents of this file were directly at this position. You can also recurively include files, so an included file may include another one and so on. Beware that you do not recursively load the same file, you will end with an errormessage like "too many files in system!". Include statements will be ignored within C-Comments and here-documents. =head1 COMMENTS A comment starts with the number sign B<#>, there can be any number of spaces and/or tabstops in front of the #. A comment can also occur after a config statement. Example: username = max # this is the comment If you want to comment out a large block you can use C-style comments. A B signals the begin of a comment block and the B<*/> signals the end of the comment block. Example: user = max # valid option db = tothemax /* user = andors db = toand */ In this example the second options of user and db will be ignored. Please beware of the fact, if the Module finds a B string which is the start of a comment block, but no matching end block, it will ignore the whole rest of the config file! B If you require the B<#> character (number sign) to remain in the option value, then you can use a backlsash in front of it, to escape it. Example: bgcolor = \#ffffcc In this example the value of $config{bgcolor} will be "#ffffcc", Config::General will not treat the number sign as the begin of a comment because of the leading backslash. Inside here-documents escaping of number signs is NOT required! =head1 OBJECT ORIENTED INTERFACE There is a way to access a parsed config the OO-way. Use the module B, which is supplied with the Config::General distribution. =head1 SEE ALSO I recommend you to read the following documentations, which are supplied with perl: perlreftut Perl references short introduction perlref Perl references, the rest of the story perldsc Perl data structures intro perllol Perl data structures: arrays of arrays Config::General::Extended Object oriented interface to parsed configs =head1 COPYRIGHT Copyright (c) 2000-2001 Thomas Linden This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. =head1 BUGS none known yet. =head1 AUTHOR Thomas Linden =head1 VERSION 1.24 =cut