[augeas-devel] multiline inifile values

[Kent Tenney]

A quick test of a buildout shows that a multiline value
becomes a string with embedded newlines, and degree
of indentation doesn't matter:

[buildout]
parts =
 a
  b
   c

results in
... 'parts': '\na\nb\nc'

Thanks,
Kent

2011/6/8 Raphaël Pinson <raphink at gmail.com>:
> Hi Kent,
>
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 9:58 PM, Kent Tenney <ktenney at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Howdy,
>>
>> from inifile.aug
>>
>> "About: TODO
>>  Things to add in the future
>>  - Support double quotes in value
>>  - Support multiline values (is it standard?)"
>>
>> I don't know if multiline values are standard or not,
>> but they are part of the Python configparser dialect of ini.
>> http://docs.python.org/library/configparser.html
>>
>> zc.buildout is a very widely used tool for managing
>> Python software installations, it is based on ini files
>> with multiline values. It would be great if Augeas
>> understood them. If I could provide a patch I would ...
>>
>
> The hard part about multiline values in IniFile is their format: indented
> values with a constant indentation level.
> I've scratched my head in the past to see how Augeas could parser and
> represent that.
> The first part is how to represent them. Should multiline values be stored
> in one node with "\n" characters (and indentations), or should they be split
> into several nodes?
> The second question is how to modify a multiline value, namely how do we
> keep the same indentation level for new lines in Augeas, since Augeas cannot
> remember (afaik) the indentation level of previous lines?
>
> Maybe David would have a clue on this.
>
> Regards
> Raphaël