Datafile::Hash - README

Datafile::Hash is a lightweight pure-Perl module for reading and writing key-value and INI-style configuration files with sections.

Key features:

• No external dependencies
• Safe atomic writes (temp file + rename)
• Consistent return values and error handling
• Verbose messaging support
• UTF-8 encoding
• Support for flat key-value files and INI-style files with nested sections

Installation

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

Synopsis

use Datafile::Hash qw(readhash writehash);

my %config;

readhash('config.ini', \%config, {
    delimiter => '=',      # triggers INI mode
    group     => 2,        # nested hashes (default)
});

# $config{database}{host} = 'localhost'

writehash('config.ini', \%config, {
    backup  => 1,
    comment => ['Auto-generated', scalar localtime],
});

Functions

• readhash($file, $hash_ref, %opts) Returns ($entry_count, \@messages, \%groups_seen)

  • \%groups_seen is only populated in INI mode

• writehash($file, $hash_ref, %opts) Returns ($entry_count, \@messages)

Key Options

• delimiter => '=' (default) '=' or ':' → INI mode with sections and quoting Anything else → flat key-value mode
• group => 2 (default) 0 = flat hash (ignore sections) 1 = dotted keys (section.sub.key) 2 = nested hashes (recommended)
• key_fields => 1 (flat mode only)
• skip_empty => 1
• skip_headers => 0 (skip leading banner lines)
• comment_char => '#'
• search => undef
• verbose => 0
• backup => 0 | 1 (writehash)
• comment => undef (writehash: top comments)
• prot => 0660 (writehash)

INI Mode Features

• [section.subsection] headers
• Quoted values with escaped quotes (")
• Automatic quoting on write when needed

License

This module is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

See the official Perl licensing terms: https://dev.perl.org/licenses/