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libConfuse Tutorial

This tutorial introduces libConfuse by gradually extending a small example program. The numbered listings below are in the doc/ directory.

# Introducing libConfuse in an existing program

Consider this simple program:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
printf("Hello, World!\n");
return 0;
}

Simple enough, but we want to extend the program so we can greet others. Maybe we don't want to greet the whole world, just our neighbour. We use libConfuse to let the user decide whom to greet.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <confuse.h>
int main(void)
{
cfg_opt_t opts[] =
{
CFG_STR("target", "World", CFGF_NONE),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_t *cfg;
cfg = cfg_init(opts, CFGF_NONE);
if(cfg_parse(cfg, "hello.conf") == CFG_PARSE_ERROR)
return 1;
printf("Hello, %s!\n", cfg_getstr(cfg, "target"));
cfg_free(cfg);
return 0;
}
confuse.h
A configuration file parser library.
CFGF_NONE
#define CFGF_NONE
Flags.
Definition confuse.h:82
CFG_END
#define CFG_END()
Terminate list of options.
Definition confuse.h:858
CFG_STR
#define CFG_STR(name, def, flags)
Initialize a string option.
Definition confuse.h:367
CFG_PARSE_ERROR
#define CFG_PARSE_ERROR
Error parsing the configuration.
Definition confuse.h:106
cfg_opt_t
Data structure holding information about an option.
Definition confuse.h:324
cfg_t
Data structure holding information about a "section".
Definition confuse.h:250

All programs using libConfuse must first include the confuse.h header file. This is done on line 2.

On line 6 - 10, the options that should be recognized are defined in an array of cfg_opt_t structs. This is passed to the cfg_init() function on line 13. The resulting cfg_t context is used by cfg_parse(), which reads the configuration file "hello.conf". When reading the configuration file, only options defined in the array of options passed to cfg_init() are recognized.

The friendly greeting is now replaced with a parameter read from the configuration file. The value of the target option is retrieved with cfg_getstr(cfg, "target").

Lets take a look at the configuration file hello.conf:

# this is the configuration file for the hello program
target = "Neighbour"

Here, the target option is set to the string value "Neighbour". What if the configuration file was empty or didn't exist? Then the default value for the target option would be used. When we initialized our options, the second parameter to the CFG_STR() macro specified the default value. Thus, if no target option was specified in the configuration file, the hello program would have printed the standard greeting "Hello, World".

## Environment variables in values

What else can we do in the configuration file? We can set the value to an environment variable:

target = ${USER}

This results in the hello program greeting the user who runs it. On some systems, the USER variable might not be available, so we want to specify a default value in those cases:

target = ${USER:-User}

Now, if the USER environment variable is unset, the string "User" will be used instead.

# Other types of options

Of course, not only strings can be specified in the configuration file. libConfuse can parse strings, integers, booleans and floating point values. These are the fundamental values, and they are all also available as lists. We'll talk more about lists in the next chapter.

The macros used to initialize a string, integer, boolean and a float is, respectively, CFG_STR(), CFG_INT(), CFG_BOOL(), CFG_FLOAT() and CFG_PTR(). All macros take three parameters: the name of the option, a default value and flags. To retrieve the values, use cfg_getstr(), cfg_getint(), cfg_getbool(), cfg_getfloat() or cfg_getptr(), respectively.

Let's introduce an integer option that tells us how many times to print the greeting:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <confuse.h>
int main(void)
{
cfg_opt_t opts[] =
{
CFG_STR("target", "World", CFGF_NONE),
CFG_INT("repeat", 1, CFGF_NONE),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_t *cfg;
int repeat;
cfg = cfg_init(opts, CFGF_NONE);
if(cfg_parse(cfg, "hello.conf") == CFG_PARSE_ERROR)
return 1;
repeat = cfg_getint(cfg, "repeat");
while(repeat--)
printf("Hello, %s!\n", cfg_getstr(cfg, "target"));
cfg_free(cfg);
return 0;
}
CFG_INT
#define CFG_INT(name, def, flags)
Initialize an integer option.
Definition confuse.h:473

Here we have used the CFG_INT() macro to initialize an integer option named "repeat". The default value is 1 as in the standard greeting. The value is retrieved with cfg_getint().

Integer values may be written in different bases: decimal by default, hexadecimal with a 0x prefix, octal with a leading 0, and binary with a 0b prefix. For example 42, 0x2a, 052 and 0b101010 all specify the same value.

A plain CFG_INT() stores its value in a C long int, so its width follows the platform: 64 bits on most 64-bit systems, but only 32 bits on 32-bit platforms, where values outside the signed 32-bit range do not fit. It is also always signed. When you need a defined width or an unsigned value, use the fixed-width macros instead: CFG_INT8(), CFG_INT16(), CFG_INT32() and CFG_INT64(), or their unsigned counterparts CFG_UINT8() through CFG_UINT64(). These have the same width on every platform and reject out-of-range values while parsing.

But, wait a moment, what if the user specified a negative value for "repeat"? Or a too large positive value? libConfuse can handle that with a so-called validating callback. We'll come back to this problem in Validating callback functions, but we will first take a look at lists.

# Introducing lists

That was easy. Now let's extend the program a bit so we can greet more than one "target". We'd like to be able to specify a list of targets to greet.

The list versions of the initialization macros are named CFG_STR_LIST(), CFG_INT_LIST(), CFG_BOOL_LIST() and CFG_FLOAT_LIST(). They take the same parameters as the non-list versions, except the default value must be a string surrounded by curly braces.

The modified program is shown below:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <confuse.h>
int main(void)
{
cfg_opt_t opts[] =
{
CFG_STR_LIST("targets", "{World}", CFGF_NONE),
CFG_INT("repeat", 1, CFGF_NONE),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_t *cfg;
int repeat;
int i;
cfg = cfg_init(opts, CFGF_NONE);
if(cfg_parse(cfg, "hello.conf") == CFG_PARSE_ERROR)
return 1;
repeat = cfg_getint(cfg, "repeat");
while(repeat--)
{
printf("Hello");
for(i = 0; i < cfg_size(cfg, "targets"); i++)
printf(", %s", cfg_getnstr(cfg, "targets", i));
printf("!\n");
}
cfg_free(cfg);
return 0;
}
CFG_STR_LIST
#define CFG_STR_LIST(name, def, flags)
Initialize a string list option.
Definition confuse.h:381

Three things are a bit different here. First, the macro to initialize the "targets" option is CFG_STR_LIST(). This tells libConfuse that "targets" is a list of strings. Second, the default value in the second parameter is surrounded by curly braces. This is needed to indicate to libConfuse where the list of values ends.

The third change is in the printing of the greeting. First we print the "Hello" string. Then we loop through all values found for the "targets" option. The number of values is retrieved with the cfg_size() function. The string values are then retrieved with cfg_getnstr(), which is an indexed version of cfg_getstr(). In fact, cfg_getstr() is equivalent to cfg_getnstr() with an index of zero.

In the configuration file hello.conf, we can now specify a list of targets to greet:

# this is the configuration file for the hello program
targets = {"Life", "Universe", "Everything"}
repeat = 1

The output of the hello program, run with the above configuration file, is: "Hello, Life, Universe, Everything!"

Again, if no targets were configured, the greeting would have been the standard "Hello, World!".

Lists use curly braces by default. If you prefer JSON-style square brackets, pass CFGF_JSON_LISTS to cfg_init() and both forms work:

targets = [ "Life", "Universe", "Everything" ]

With the flag set, cfg_print() writes lists with [ ] too. One caveat: a value of a list option that contains a bracket must then be quoted (targets = "foo[0]", [ "[::1]" ]). Values inside { } and non-list options are unaffected.

# Using sections

So far, we have only use a flat configuration file. libConfuse can also handle sections to build a hierarchy of options. Sections can be used to group options in logical blocks, and those blocks can (optionally) be specified multiple times.

Sections are initialized with the CFG_SEC() macro. It also takes three parameters: the name of the option, an array of options allowed in the section and flags.

We'll extend the, now rather complex, hello program so we can do other kinds of greetings, not just "Hello". Each greeting will have its own settings for targets and repeat.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <confuse.h>
int main(void)
{
cfg_opt_t greet_opts[] =
{
CFG_STR_LIST("targets", "{World}", CFGF_NONE),
CFG_INT("repeat", 1, CFGF_NONE),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_opt_t opts[] =
{
CFG_SEC("greeting", greet_opts, CFGF_TITLE | CFGF_MULTI),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_t *cfg, *cfg_greet;
int repeat;
int i, j;
cfg = cfg_init(opts, CFGF_NONE);
if(cfg_parse(cfg, "hello.conf") == CFG_PARSE_ERROR)
return 1;
for(j = 0; j < cfg_size(cfg, "greeting"); j++)
{
cfg_greet = cfg_getnsec(cfg, "greeting", j);
repeat = cfg_getint(cfg_greet, "repeat");
while(repeat--)
{
printf("%s", cfg_title(cfg_greet));
for(i = 0; i < cfg_size(cfg_greet, "targets"); i++)
printf(", %s", cfg_getnstr(cfg_greet, "targets", i));
printf("!\n");
}
}
cfg_free(cfg);
return 0;
}
CFG_SEC
#define CFG_SEC(_name, _opts, _flags)
Initialize a section.
Definition confuse.h:790
CFGF_TITLE
#define CFGF_TITLE
option has a title (only applies to sections)
Definition confuse.h:86
CFGF_MULTI
#define CFGF_MULTI
option may be specified multiple times (only applies to sections)
Definition confuse.h:83

We have renamed the option array from "opts" to "greet_opts", and introduced a new "opts" array that only has one option: a "greeting" section. The second parameter of the CFG_SEC() macro points to the old greeting options "targets" and "repeat".

We have also used a couple of flags to alter the behaviour of the section: CFGF_TITLE means that a greeting section should have a title and the CFGF_MULTI flag tells libConfuse that this section may be specified multiple times in the configuration file. The title of a section is retrieved with the cfg_title() function.

The outmost loop (with index j) now loops through all given sections in the configuration file. We retrieve a section with a cfg_getnsec() call. The value returned is a pointer to a cfg_t struct, the same type as returned by cfg_init(). Thus we can use the ordinary value retrieval functions cfg_getstr(), cfg_getint() and so on to retrieve values of options inside the section.

Ok, so how does the configuration file look like for this setup?

# this is the configuration file for the hello program
greeting Hello
{
targets = {"Life", "Universe", "Everything"}
repeat = 1
}
greeting Bye
{
targets = {Adams}
repeat = 1
}

The program will loop through the sections in the order specified in the configuration file. First it will find the "Hello" section. It prints the title of the section, "Hello", retrieved with cfg_title(). Then the targets are printed just as in the previous examples, but this time the values are retrieved from the cfg_greet section. Next, the section titled "Bye" is found, and the values are retrieved from that section.

When run, the program produces the following:

$ ./listing5
Hello, Life, Universe, Everything!
Bye, Adams!
$

# Parsing from internal buffers

So far, we have only parsed configuration data from files. libConfuse can also parse buffers, or in-memory character strings. We will use this to fix a problem in the previous code.

The problem is that without a configuration file, the hello program will not print anything. We want it to at least print the standard greeting "Hello, World!" if no configuration file is available.

We can't have a default value for a section that can be specified multiple times (ie, a section with the CFGF_MULTI flag set). Instead we will parse a default configuration string if no section has been parsed:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <confuse.h>
int main(void)
{
/* ... setup options ... */
cfg = cfg_init(opts, CFGF_NONE);
cfg_parse(cfg, "hello.conf");
if(cfg_size(cfg, "greeting") == 0)
{
cfg_parse_buf(cfg, "greeting Hello {}");
}
/* ... print the greetings ... */
}

Only the changes from the previous code is shown here. We check if the size of the "greeting" section is zero (ie, no section has been defined). In that case we call cfg_parse_buf() to parse a default in-memory string "greeting Hello {}". This string defines a greeting section with title Hello, but without any sub-options. This way we rely on the default values of the (sub-)options "targets" and "repeat".

When this program is run, it issues the well-known standard greeting "Hello, World!" if no configuration file is present.

# Validating callback functions

Remember the problem about a negative or too large "repeat" value in Other types of options? The code that prints the greeting has those lines:

...
repeat = cfg_getint(cfg_greet, "repeat");
while(repeat--)
...

The repeat variable is defined as an int, a signed integer. If the user specified a negative repeat value in the configuration file, this code would continue to decrease the repeat variable until it eventually underflowed.

We'll fix this by not allowing a negative value in the configuration file. Of course we could first just check if the value is negative and then abort, using cfg_getint() and a test. But we will use a validating callback function instead. This way cfg_parse() will return an error directly when parsing the file, additionally indicating on which line the error is.

A validating callback function is defined as:

typedef int (*cfg_validate_callback_t)(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt);
cfg_validate_callback_t
int(* cfg_validate_callback_t)(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt)
Validating callback prototype.
Definition confuse.h:201

This function takes two arguments: the section and the option. It should return 0 on success (ie, the value validated ok). All other values indicates an error, and the parsing is aborted. The callback function should notify the error itself, for example by calling cfg_error().

Here is the code for the callback function:

int validate_unsigned_int(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt)
{
int value = cfg_opt_getnint(opt, cfg_opt_size(opt) - 1);
if(value < 0)
{
cfg_error(cfg, "integer option '%s' must be positive in section '%s'",
opt->name, cfg->name);
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
cfg_opt_t::name
const char * name
The name of the option.
Definition confuse.h:325
cfg_t::name
char * name
The name of this section, the root section returned from cfg_init() is always named "root".
Definition confuse.h:252

Only the last value is validated, because libConfuse will call this function once for every value corresponding to the option. Since the "repeat" option is not a list, we could instead have used cfg_opt_getint(opt) to retrieve the only value. However, if we later want to use this callback to validate an integer list, it is already lists-aware.

## Installing the callback

The validating callback is installed with cfg_set_validate_func(). It is called with a string specifying which option is affected, and a pointer to the callback function. To specify an option in a subsection, the section and the option must be separated with a vertical bar ("|").

We're now also looking at the return code from cfg_parse() to verify that the parsing was successful. The complete program is now:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <confuse.h>
int validate_unsigned_int(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt)
{
int value = cfg_opt_getnint(opt, cfg_opt_size(opt) - 1);
if(value < 0)
{
cfg_error(cfg, "integer option '%s' must be positive in section '%s'",
opt->name, cfg->name);
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
int main(void)
{
cfg_opt_t greet_opts[] =
{
CFG_STR_LIST("targets", "{World}", CFGF_NONE),
CFG_INT("repeat", 1, CFGF_NONE),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_opt_t opts[] =
{
CFG_SEC("greeting", greet_opts, CFGF_TITLE | CFGF_MULTI),
CFG_END()
};
cfg_t *cfg, *cfg_greet;
int repeat;
int i, j;
cfg = cfg_init(opts, CFGF_NONE);
cfg_set_validate_func(cfg, "greeting|repeat", validate_unsigned_int);
if(cfg_parse(cfg, "hello.conf") == CFG_PARSE_ERROR)
return 1;
for(j = 0; j < cfg_size(cfg, "greeting"); j++)
{
cfg_greet = cfg_getnsec(cfg, "greeting", j);
repeat = cfg_getint(cfg_greet, "repeat");
while(repeat--)
{
printf("%s", cfg_title(cfg_greet));
for(i = 0; i < cfg_size(cfg_greet, "targets"); i++)
printf(", %s", cfg_getnstr(cfg_greet, "targets", i));
printf("!\n");
}
}
cfg_free(cfg);
return 0;
}

# Value parsing callback

A value parsing callback is another kind of callback function available in libConfuse. This function is used to map a string into some other value. One example is to extend a boolean option to accept the values "yes", "no" and "ask" (or perhaps "true", "false" and "maybe"). Those values should be mapped to the integers 1, 2 and 3.

typedef int (*cfg_callback_t)(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt,
const char *value, void *result);
cfg_callback_t
int(* cfg_callback_t)(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt, const char *value, void *result)
Value parsing callback prototype.
Definition confuse.h:186

# Functions

libConfuse supports functions to parse options that does not fit well in the general syntax. Functions can be called with a variable number of arguments. No data from the function or any arguments are stored by libConfuse after the function has run. It is up to the caller to process and/or save the data.

A function is defined with a CFG_FUNC() macro. It takes two arguments: the name of the function and a function callback. The callback is defined as:

typedef int (*cfg_func_t)(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt,
int argc, const char **argv);
cfg_func_t
int(* cfg_func_t)(cfg_t *cfg, cfg_opt_t *opt, int argc, const char **argv)
Function prototype used by CFGT_FUNC options.
Definition confuse.h:141

## Predefined functions

Currently there is only one pre-defined function: cfg_include(). This function includes another configuration file. Configuration data is immediately read from the included file, and is returned to the position right after the include() statement upon end of file.

To use this function, include a CFG_FUNC() entry in your options:

cfg_opt_t opts[] = {
CFG_FUNC("include", cfg_include),
CFG_END()
};
CFG_FUNC
#define CFG_FUNC(_name, _func)
Initialize a function.
Definition confuse.h:805

In the configuration file, it is used in the following way:

include("included.conf")