nano-ini

Tiny .ini → dict reader — ~1 KB, zero deps. Supports key=value and [section]; outputs JSON (dict). Perfect for code-golf, minimal containers, or just for fun.

✨ Features

• ✅ Sections: [database], [app] …
• ✅ Keys: key=value (whitespace trimmed)
• ✅ Full-line comments: ; or #
• ✅ Root keys (before any section) stored under empty section ""
• ✅ Zero dependencies • single tiny file • CLI included

🚀 Usage

; sample.ini
name = nano
[database]
host = localhost
port = 5432

# Local (from repo)
python app_min.py sample.ini
# {"":"","database":{"host":"localhost","port":"5432"}}
python app_min.py sample.ini database
# {"host":"localhost","port":"5432"}

# stdin
cat sample.ini | python app_min.py

After installing:

# CLI
pip install nano-ini
nano-ini sample.ini                 # full JSON
nano-ini sample.ini database        # one section

🤓 Why so small?

• Pure stdlib, hand-rolled parser (no configparser dependency)
• Minimal rules: key=value, [section], full-line comments only
• Dumps compact JSON with separators=(',',':')

Notes:

• Values are kept as strings (no auto-casting or interpolation).
• Inline comments (key=val ; note) aren’t parsed specially (keep them out of value lines).

🎉 Fun Ideas

• Grab a single value (host)

nano-ini config.ini database | jq -r .host

(nano-ini config.ini database | ConvertFrom-Json).host

• Export a section as environment variables

export $(nano-ini config.ini database | jq -r 'to_entries|.[]|"\(.key)=\(.value)"')

nano-ini config.ini database | jq -r 'to_entries|.[]|"\(.key)=\(.value)"' > .env

• Validate required keys

nano-ini config.ini database | jq -e 'has("host") and has("port")' >/dev/null && echo OK || echo MISSING

• Overlay/merge INIs (last wins)

cat base.ini override.ini | nano-ini - | jq .

• Use root (no section) keys

nano-ini config.ini "" | jq .

• GitHub Actions: output a field

echo "db_host=$(nano-ini config.ini database | jq -r .host)" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"

• First N records

nano-csv2json data.csv | head -100 > sample.jsonl

Tip: Output is compact JSON. Combine with jq for querying, filtering, or formatting.

📜 License

MIT © 2025