Introduction - Nini Manual

## Nini Manual

## 1. Introduction

### 1.1 What is Application Configuration Data?

As a developer you deal with application configuration data all of the time. Common examples of this are INI files, XML files, .NET configuration files (aka “.config”), the Windows registry, and command line (argv) arguments. The advantages of configuration files are that they load quickly, do not take up a lot of space, and are easy to edit.

### 1.2 The Problem

Attempts to create configuration file access schemes do not satisfy the needs of either programmers or end-users. To give a real life scenario I worked for an organization that configured their original programs using the Windows registry API (Application Programming Interface). Later on they developed their own ASP configuration class. At about the same time another group developed an API that fetched the data from a database. Then when ASP.NET came along they started to use Web.config. In a matter of several years the number of configuration data sources grew from one to four! Needless to say getting configuration data often became a grueling task. Here are the three major areas where configuration management can be improved:

- API
  Developers use a configuration file format that gets their application running in the shortest time possible. However the API for accessing this data is commonly added as an afterthought resulting in an inflexible API. In very small applications this might not be a problem but as a program’s codebase grows the configuration information will often find itself littered throughout the application code.

- End Users
  Configuration files are usually not written with the end user in mind. Often the configuration options are terse programming terms that only the bravest users dare to change them. This leads to developers having to write complicated configuration file editors or worse, entirely redesigning their original APIs.

- Multiple Configuration Sources
  As your software matures it is not uncommon for more application configuration types to be added (such as the example I gave you earlier). This often occurs because of merging code from other projects, new improved formats, and moving to different programming platforms. This forces programmers to learn multiple APIs. The end result is code that is neither consistent nor friendly to new programmers. The old configuration files aren't replaced because programmers and their managers are not comfortable with altering mature code. Users that edit the files are resistant to this change because they would prefer not to learn a new file format.

### 1.3 Introducing Nini

Nini is an uncommonly powerful .NET configuration library designed to help build highly configurable applications quickly. Nini provides a solution that attempts to eliminate the above problems. It provides a large feature set that gives you functionality that you will use in every phase of your project, from concept to mature product. This is accomplished through a simple, yet flexible, API that provides an abstraction over the underlying configuration sources. It solves all of the problems that I described above. We’ll see how this is done in the examples below.