Parsing Key-Value Config Files

Note: This post was drafted by an AI assistant under direction from the author. It is not first-hand writing; the design choices it describes are real, the prose explaining them is generated. Treat the technical content as the design talking, and the framing as a translation layer.

KvConfig parses flat configuration files like:

host = localhost
port = 8080
debug = true

It supports = or : as separators, # and ; comments, blank lines, and single- or double-quoted values for strings with embedded whitespace. The result is a Map(Str, Str) you read by key.

Example

#include <Misra.h>
#include <Misra/Std/Allocator/Default.h>

int main(void) {
    Scope(alloc, DefaultAllocator) {
        Str text = StrInitFromZstr(
            "host = localhost\n"
            "port = 8080\n"
            "debug = true\n"
        );

        KvConfig cfg = KvConfigInit();
        StrIter  si  = StrIterFromStr(text);
        si = KvConfigParse(si, &cfg);

        Str   host  = KvConfigGet(&cfg, "host");
        i64   port  = 0;
        bool  debug = false;
        KvConfigGetI64(&cfg, "port", &port);
        KvConfigGetBool(&cfg, "debug", &debug);

        WriteFmtLn("host = {}", host);
        WriteFmtLn("port = {}", port);
        WriteFmtLn("debug = {}", debug);

        StrDeinit(&host);
        KvConfigDeinit(&cfg);
        StrDeinit(&text);
    }
}

Reading values

If a key appears more than once in the file, the later line wins.

When to use it

Pick KvConfig for hand-edited, mostly flat config: short daemon settings, CLI defaults, small game configs. If you need nested objects, arrays, or strict schemas, use the JSON parser instead.