INI formats

INI files are text files with CRLF line endings. They are divided into uniquely named sections. The beginning each of section is denoted by a line of the following form: "[section type]" where section type is a series of words. Each section type is followed by lines up to the next section that specify data for that section and each different section type may have a different format.

There are two main types of format following the section type:
Each line is variable=value[,value]…
Each line is a just an EOL terminated string.

Also any line beginning with a semicolon (;) is a comment and will be ignored. NOTE that the author (who has since left MS) of MS' chm compiler (HHC & HHA) has said that it is only safe to put comments before any section names have been specified (ie at the start of the file). Tests with HHW 1.3 (HHA Version 4.74.8702), however indicate that it is safe to put comments on any line. This may not be true for older versions, however.

Definitions

The following variables are used below in the description of values in the different format descriptions:

bool

Yes|No

decimal number

(0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9)…

hex number

0x(0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|a|b|c|d|e|f|A|B|C|D|E|F)…

number

hex number|decimal number

string

Any character (usually alphanumerics plus underscore) repeated up to the terminator (usually EOL, also '=' or '"')

path

Similar to string, but a file with the same name should exist