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By creating an INI file, you can, for example, reconfigure the behaviour of an application. There are a few things you should bear in mind.
INI file: What it is and how to create one
INI files are known as ‘initialisation files’. However, they may also be referred to as configuration files or config files.
- An INI file (initialisation file) is a simple text file that contains configuration information for an application or an operating system. It can be created, read and edited with little effort.
- INI files are common in Windows operating systems and Windows applications. For configuring Linux systems, on the other hand, one is more likely to find conf or cfg files. Ultimately, however, the file extensions are of little significance and have no major impact on the functionality of the file.
- An INI file can be created from a blank file simply by changing the file extension to ‘.ini’ in File Explorer. However, such a file is of no use to any programme without the appropriate content. To edit it, you need nothing more than a simple text editor, such as the standard editor in Windows.
- However, an editor such as Notepad++ offers greater convenience and colour-coding for the sections, which makes editing easier and more efficient. In general, Notepad++ is simply more convenient than the standard editor.
- INI files were particularly widespread before the Registry was introduced. The Registry was first introduced with Windows NT 3.1. In an INI file, so-called key-value pairs are specified. In these, a value is assigned to a key. To improve clarity, it is also possible to create sections to categorise the key-value pairs.
INI file: What to bear in mind when creating one
When creating or editing an INI file, you should observe the following rules:
- Each section may only appear once.
- You may also only set one key per section.
- You can access values by specifying the section and the key.
- Start comments with a semicolon. Comments must always span an entire line without interrupting a key-value pair or a section.
- Different programmes handle spaces and quotation marks differently.
- There is no distinction between upper and lower case.
- ‘False’ and ‘No’ are interpreted as 0, whilst “True” and ‘Yes’ are interpreted as 1.
