Although made popular by Windows, INI files can be used on any system thanks to their flexibility. They allow a program to store configuration data, which can then be easily parsed and changed. Two notable systems that use the INI format are Samba and Trac. More information about INI files can be found on the [Wikipedia Page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file). ### Properties The basic element contained in an INI file is the property. Every property has a name and a value, delimited by an equals sign *=*. The name appears to the left of the equals sign and the value to the right. name=value ### Sections Section declarations start with *[* and end with *]* as in `[section1]` and `[section2]` shown in the example below. The section declaration marks the beginning of a section. All properties after the section declaration will be associated with that section. ### Comments All lines beginning with a semicolon *;* or a number sign *#* are considered to be comments. Comment lines are ignored when parsing INI files. ### Example File Format A typical INI file might look like this: [section1] ; some comment on section1 var1 = foo var2 = doodle var3 = multiline values \ are also possible [section2] # another comment var1 = baz var2 = shoodle