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36-528: (Redirected from Inf ) [REDACTED] Look up inf in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Inf or INF may refer to: Computing [ edit ] INF file , a file extension (information file) used by software and hardware driver installation routines INF help file , a binary help file created after compiling IPF help source with IBM or Open Watcom's help compiler. Informatics (academic field) ,

72-613: A section . Some INI dialects require every key-value pair to be in a section, some allow so-called global properties . When key-value pairs are grouped, the section name appears on a line by itself, enclosed in square brackets ( [ , ASCII 0x5B, and ] , ASCII 0x5D), and applies to all key-value pairs on subsequent lines until another section is declared. There is no explicit "end of section" delimiter (such as e.g. XML's </tag> . Thus, sections syntactically cannot be arbitrarily nested. When required, nesting can be implemented through flattening one's hierarchy and concatenating with

108-437: A custom delimiter character inside the section name (often . , ASCII 0x2E). One level of nesting is often supported, called subsections . Exemplary INI document employing nested sections: Some parsers allow section nesting, using dots as path delimiters: In some cases relative nesting is supported too, where a leading dot expresses nesting to the previous section: Historically, ways for expressing nesting alternative to

144-489: A different syntax than the INI file. Among them, TOML most closely resembles INI, but the idea to make TOML deliberately compatible with a large subset of INI was rejected. The newest INI parsers however allow the same arbitrary level of nesting of XML , JSON , TOML , and YAML , offer equivalent support of typed values and Unicode , although keep the "informal status" of INI files by allowing multiple syntaxes for expressing

180-675: A mapping between an INI file and the Windows registry . It was introduced with Windows NT and Windows 95 as a way to migrate from storing settings in classic .ini files to the new registry. File mapping traps the Profile API calls and, using settings from the IniFileMapping Registry section, directs reads and writes to appropriate places in the Registry. Using the example below, a string call could be made to fetch

216-472: A parser. Under the WinAPI 's GetPrivateProfileString 's dialect, comments must occur on lines by themselves. The order of properties in a section and the order of sections in a file is irrelevant. Most implementations only support having one property with a given name in a section. The second occurrence of a property name may cause an abort , it may be ignored (and the value discarded), or it may override

252-403: A similar format. INI is human-readable and simple to parse, so it is a usable format for configuration files that do not require much greater complexity. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of places in which INI files appear. The following example file has two sections: one for the owner of the software, and one for a payroll database connection. Comments record the last person who modified

288-547: A string from the specified section in an initialization file. (The "private" profile is contrasted with GetProfileString , which fetches from WIN.INI .) The following sample C program demonstrates reading property values from the above sample INI file (let the name of configuration file be dbsettings.ini ): The third parameter of the GetPrivateProfileString function is the default value, which are "127.0.0.1" and 143 respectively in

324-583: A structure and syntax comprising key–value pairs organized in sections. The name of these configuration files comes from the filename extension INI , short for initialization , used in the MS-DOS operating system which popularized this method of software configuration. The format has become an informal standard in many contexts of configuration, but many applications on other operating systems use different file name extensions, such as conf and cfg . The primary mechanism of software configuration in Windows

360-458: Is a binary representation of an INF file compiled by the operating system. The structure of an INF file is very similar to that of an INI file ; it contains various sections that specify the files to be copied, changes to the registry, etc. All INF files contain a [Version] section with a Signature key–value pair specifying the version of Windows that the INF file is meant for. The signature

396-414: Is commonly $ CHICAGO$ (for Windows 9x ) or $ WINDOWS NT$ (for Windows NT / 2K / XP ). Most of the remaining sections are user-defined and contain information specific to the component being installed. An example of an INF file might have something like this: What this would do is open the example.exe file automatically whenever the media containing the file (in its root directory) is connected to

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432-423: Is found, INI mapping uses its value as a pointer to another part of the Registry. It then looks up the requested INI setting in that part of the Registry. If no matching entry name is found and there is an entry under the (Default) entry name, INI mapping uses that instead. Thus each section name does not need its own entry. So, in this case the profile call for the [owner] section is mapped through to: where

468-565: The backslash character ( \ , ASCII 0x5C) as a metacharacter and emulating C syntax . It is not wise to blindly interpret escape sequences as some specifications explicitly mute their metacharacter for common escape sequences. Under Windows, the Profile API is the programming interface used to read and write settings from classic Windows .ini files. For example, the GetPrivateProfileString function retrieves

504-404: The name key from the owner section from a settings file called, say, dbsettings.ini . The returned value should be the string "John Doe": INI mapping takes this Profile API call, ignores any path in the given filename and checks to see if there is a Registry key matching the filename under the directory: If this exists, it looks for an entry name matching the requested section. If an entry

540-448: The number sign ( # , ASCII 0x23) to denote a comment, mirroring Unix shell comments. Some INI dialects but not all allow a comment on a key-value pair line or section line (called in-line comment ), where some require whitespace separating the value or section closing bracket from the comment. The number sign might be nonetheless included in the key name in some dialects and ignored as such. Comment lines are designed to be ignored by

576-464: The " name " Registry entry name is found to match the requested INI key. The value of "John Doe" is then returned to the Profile call. In this case, the @ prefix on the default prevents any reads from going to the dbsettings.ini file on disk. The result is that any settings not found in the Registry are not looked for in the INI file. The " database " Registry entry does not have the @ prefix on

612-474: The INI format is able to express arbitrary S-expressions , making it equivalent to standardised formats like XML or JSON , albeit with a syntax which is not set in stone and to some may feel more comfortable. As the INI file format is not rigidly defined, many parsers support features beyond those that form the common core. Implemented support is highly volatile. Data in INI is held in key-value pairs called key or property . Key may thus either refer to

648-479: The computer. This can be dangerous, as there is no way to tell whether such a file exists before inserting the media. Since Windows XP, however, this feature has been replaced with a menu forcing the user to choose which action to take. INF Files can sometimes be dangerous on Windows 2000 as they may allow viruses to autorun without prompting. They are blocked on Windows 7, but can be worked around. icon=*.ico command replaces any old or default drive icon with

684-528: The computing environment, such as whitespace preservation, field type information, case sensitivity, or preferred comment delimiters. This makes INI prone to proliferation. Nonetheless, INI-flavoured implementations typically share common design features: a text file consisting of a key-value pair on each line, delimited by an equals sign , organized into sections denoted by square brackets. Attempts to create parsers able to support as many dialects as possible exist, and in its most complicated interpretation,

720-450: The dot have existed too (for example, IBM's driver file for Microsoft Windows devlist.ini , in which the backslash was used as nesting delimiter in the form of [A\B\C] ; or Microsoft Visual Studio's AEMANAGR.INI file, which used a completely different syntax in the form of [A] and B,C,P = V ). Some parsers did not offer nesting support at all and were hierarchy-blind, but nesting could still be partially emulated by exploiting

756-461: The entire key-value pair or only its key. A value is also called property name . In its textual representation, the key-value pair is represented by either a line or a multiline where the start of the value is indicated by a delimiter , most often an equals sign ( = , ASCII 0x3D) but sometimes also a colon ( : , ASCII 0x3A) or whitespace (occasionally used in the GNU world ). The key's key appears to

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792-477: The fact that [A.B.C] constitutes a unique identifier. Section and property names in Windows are case insensitive . Most Unix-style INI interpretations forbid case folding altogether, although case folding for the section name or key is sometimes allowed. A line with contiguous trailing whitespace followed by a semicolon ( ; , ASCII 0x3E) indicates a comment . Some INI dialects furthermore allow use of

828-562: The fact that the registry is monolithic, opaque and binary, must be in sync with the filesystem, and represents a single point of failure for the operating system. Later XML -based configuration files became a popular choice for encoding configuration in text files. XML allows arbitrarily complex levels and nesting, and has standard mechanisms for encoding binary data . More recently, data serialization formats, such as JSON , TOML , and YAML can serve as configuration formats. These three alternative formats can nest arbitrarily, but have

864-401: The file and the reason for modification. In its broader sense, INI is an informal format which lends itself well to ad-hoc implementation while remaining human-configurable. Consequently, many varying specifications (where sometimes a parser implementation is the only specification ever written) exist, called INI dialects . INI interpretations depend a lot on personal taste and the needs of

900-724: The first occurrence (with the first value discarded). Some programs use duplicate property names to implement multi-valued properties. Interpretation of multiple section declarations with the same name also varies. In some implementations, duplicate sections simply merge their properties, as if they occurred contiguously. Others may abort, or ignore some aspect of the INI file. Some implementations allow values to be quoted, typically using double quotes and/or apostrophes . This allows for explicit declaration of whitespace, and/or for quoting of special characters (equals, semicolon, etc.). The standard Windows function GetPrivateProfileString supports this, and will remove quotation marks that surround

936-574: The global umbrella organisation representing official national naturist societies International Netball Federation , the international governing body for the sport of netball Irish National Federation , a nationalist political party in Ireland 1891–1900 Places [ edit ] In Guezzam Airport , Algeria INF Clairefontaine , France national football team centre Biology [ edit ] Inferior; see Anatomical terms of location § Superior and inferior Inflammation , part of

972-455: The immune response to tissue damage or infection Military [ edit ] Infantry , land based soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot People [ edit ] Issey Nakajima-Farran , Canadian soccer player Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title INF . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

1008-587: The left of the delimiter, is often non-empty and should not contain the delimiter. Some flavours allow escape sequences in the value. In the Windows implementation, the equals sign and the semicolon are reserved characters and cannot appear in the key. Any whitespace surrounding the key is stripped by the parser. The value can contain any character (in Windows-style, no whitespace surrounds the delimiter: e.g. IconFile=Folder.ico ). Key-value pairs may textually look like: Key-value pairs may be grouped under

1044-474: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=INF&oldid=1234036442 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages INF file The \windows\inf directory contains several such .inf files. Precompiled setup Information file ( *.pnf )

1080-603: The science of information and the practice of information processing Mathematics [ edit ] Infinity , referring to something without any limit Infimum , the greatest lower bound of a subset of a partially ordered set Politics [ edit ] Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty , a 1987 arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union International Naturist Federation ,

1116-450: The specified one. [autorun] can be replaced by [AutoRun] or [Autorun] . The INF file may specify values for Windows Registry entries. Drivers providers and users may for instance use this feature to override display Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) metadata for displays that have corrupted ROM memory. INI file An INI file is a configuration file for computer software that consists of plain text with

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1152-913: The two function calls above. If the argument supplied for this parameter is NULL , the default is an empty string, "" . Under Unix, many different configuration libraries exist to access INI files. They are often already included in frameworks and toolkits. Examples of INI parsers for Unix include GLib , iniparser and libconfini . 23.0.1 (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] 21.0.5 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] 17.0.13 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] 11.0.25 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] 8u431 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] Initialization file mapping creates

1188-651: The use of the Windows Registry and began to steer developers away from using INI files for configuration. All subsequent versions of Windows have used the Windows Registry for system configuration, but applications built on the .NET Framework use special XML .config files. The initialization-file functions are still available in Windows and developers may still use them. Besides Windows software, platform-agnostic software may use this file format for configuration. Some Unix-like config files also use

1224-444: The value; thus, for the [database] section only , settings in the Registry are taken first followed by settings in the dbsettings.ini file on disk. Starting with Windows 95 , Microsoft began strongly promoting the use of the Windows registry over INI files. INI files are typically limited to two levels (sections and properties) and do not handle binary data well. This decision, however, has not been immune to critiques, due to

1260-409: The values. Emulating C syntax , some dialects allow line folding by a backslash ( \ , ASCII 0x5C) as the last character on a line. In such line continuation , backslashes followed immediately by EOL (end-of-line) cause the backslash and line break to be dropped, transforming the document's lines into logical lines . Some dialects offer varying support for character escaping , typically with

1296-449: Was originally a text file format that comprised text lines with one key–value pair per line, organized into sections. This format was used for operating system components, such as device drivers, fonts, and startup launchers. INI files were also generally used by applications to store individual settings. The format was maintained in 16-bit Microsoft Windows platforms up through Windows 3.1x . Starting with Windows 95 Microsoft favored

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