I'm developing software that will utilize a config file. I don't know many syntaxes or formats of config files. Here are the two I know:
(common with .conf files)
[section]
key=value
#comment
or (common with .ini)
key value
; comment
My interest is something versatile that's almost a language. Let's say
[Default]
Start = 0
End = 10
Speed = 1
[Section 3-6]
Speed = 2
This would act as an override. However this isn't any convention that I know of. Is there a common syntax that allows for this?
This once-valid answer is being voted down in 2020, so I edited it.
In 2011, I suggested you use an xml format. This was the de-facto standard then.
The configuration document could have looked like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8">
<configuraton>
<default>
<start>0</start>
<end>10</end>
<speed>1</speed>
</default>
<section from="3" to="6">
<speed>2</speed>
</section>
</configuration>
There are many libraries to parse such files.