diff --git a/parse.sh b/parse.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..4369cc2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/parse.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# parse /etc/jail.conf, better version
+
+parse() {
+    file=$1
+
+    egrep -v '^ *#|^$' $file \
+    | awk '/^[a-zA-Z0-9\*]/ {
+              # extract the jail name
+              gsub(/\s*\{/, "");     # remove trailing parenthesis
+              gsub(/\*/, "any");     # rename *
+              jail = $0;
+          }
+          /=/ {
+              # key value pair
+              gsub(/^\s*/, "");      # remove leading spaces
+              gsub(/;.*/, "");       # remove trailing semicolong
+              gsub(/\s*=\s*/, "=");  # remove spaces around =
+              if(/\.[a-zA-Z0-9_]*=/) {
+                # replace dot in variable name with underscore
+                sub(/\./, "_");
+              }
+
+              # extract key+value
+              split($0, pair, /=/);
+              key = pair[1];
+              value = pair[2];
+              
+              # store into arrays
+              if(jail == "any") {
+                 any[key] = value;
+              }
+              else {
+                 j[jail][key] = value;
+              }
+          }
+
+          END {
+              output as shell code
+              for (jail in j) {
+                 for (key in j[jail]) {
+                    gsub(/\$name/, jail, j[jail][key])
+                    printf "s_%s=%s\n", jail, key, j[jail][key]
+                 }
+                 for (anykey in any) {
+                    if (! (jail, anykey) in j) {
+                       gsub(/\$name/, jail, any[anykey])
+                       printf "%s_%s=%s\n", jail, anykey, any[anykey]
+                    }
+                 }
+              }
+          }'
+}
+
+parse $1