Newbie C (and/or C++) programming question!

Since many configuration options are set up in plain text config files, is there are standard way to read and parse them?

I could write my own version, but it would probably not be the most efficient way, and wound just be reinventing the wheel...

Thanks

The answer is..... no

There really isn't a default standard way linux configuration files are layed out.

Sometimes the option labes are one word, sometimes they are multiple. Sometimes the option value is one word/value, sometimes it is multiple. Sometimes there are " or some other character around values, sometimes not. It really is inconsistant.

It depend on what do you need to store. For short info use something like :
info as string separated by a special char (say 29 so user never use it).

But it as some big disadvantage : it can be really hard to extend. If your project grow it can be a whole part to rewrite.

I would suggest you to write it as xml files. There's a lot of parser for xml files like libxml or QT. Some of the job is already done but you have to learn some basis of xml....

I think this is the best way since it's extensible and a very powerfull way of storing things...
And more it can be edited...

Hope this help...

Yeah thanks. I really have no need for it at the moment, but I am pretty new to linux and having edited a million linux config files that essentially looked the same I was just wondering why it was that way!

Config files are the same mostly out of convention.
There are no rules or convenient libraries it's just
that people do it the same way b/c it is easy and
there isn't really a need to do it differently.