Below is an example. Only change the values for the variables inside the supplies_res_* section without touching anything else.

INI Before Change

Code:

[supplies_generic]
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 3,    0.5

[supplies_res_3]:supplies_generic
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 3, 1

[supplies_res_6]:supplies_res_3
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 3,    0.5

[trade_generic_sell]
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 1.5, 1.5

INI After Change

Code:

[supplies_generic]
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 3,    0.5

[supplies_res_3]:supplies_generic
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 100, 1.0

[supplies_res_6]:supplies_res_3
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 100, 1.0

[trade_generic_sell]
ammo_12x76_zhekan        = 1.5, 1.5

Sounds simple, like something that you can do with SED address ranges but it seems really hard or impossible.

You are correct that another scripting tool would make it easier and that using a dedicated INI file parser library would be the best solution. I think that this is the way to go at this point because I can't find a simple solution.

I chose SED because that is the tool that I know how to use and I thought it would be easy to do this with a single line of code for SED.

SED Script - One Line INI Variable Change in Section (Broken!, skips every other section when consecutive sections match)

Code:

/^\[%section%\]/I, /^\[/ s/^(%variable%=)(.*)$/\1%value%/I;

Whitespace Robust

Code:

/^[[:space:]]*\[[[:space:]]*%section%[[:space:]]*\]/I, /^[[:space:]]*\[/ s/^([[:space:]]*%variable%[[:space:]]*=[[:space:]]*)(.*)[[:space:]]*$/\1%value%/I;

SED Negative RegEx Modifier ! - Not The Solution

SED has a unary NOT "!" modifier available but it only applies to the entire address, singleton and range, and not for individual RegExp in the address. This modifier cannot be used for this solution because the match for ADDR2 has to be a positive match for the start of the next section but once you get a positive match then this line becomes inclusive in the address.



SED NonInclusive ADDR2 Modifier Required - New Feature Request

The real solution would be SED to have an option or a modifier available for the ADDR2 so that when it matches that line it becomes non-inclusive. This way address ranges for SED could be used to parse files that have a structure with markings only delimiting the beginning of sections but not the ending of sections.

If you think about it most of the human designed data formats for ad-hoc purposes such as documents or simple data files only delineate the beginning of a new section but never add any markings for the ending since they treat the beginning of a new section as that marking.

I think that this improvement to SED would be a worth while endeavor to include in the program. The problem is that I am not a programmer and I don't know how SED handles the stream input so I don't know how difficult it would be for ADDR2 to be made non-inclusive.

It could be simple with the internal line counter being made to not increment on ADDR2 match so that the next cycle of the script hits ADDR2 line again. But this could create a problem with stream processing or file editing since it is customary for SED to only hit each line once and not repeat it.

However, I always thought that the inclusiveness of ADDR2 was a weakness in the address range design since this is not the first time that I butted my head against this wall when trying to do seemingly simple file changes with SED only to realize that what I want to do just cannot be done, even if I go into SED Guru Mode and start doing branches with b, t, T.

After I hit this realization I usually boink myself and try to go next level up to AWK while silently cursing in my breath for never learning PERL in the first place to move all my file and line editing in it.