illlegal characters for ini file values

[perplexity]

Here for instance:
http://de.php.net/manual/en/function.parse-ini-file.php

it says

Characters {}|&~![()" must not be used anywhere in the key and have a special meaning in the value.

but nothing more than that.

To whatever extent that it may be predicted, I want to know what exactly happens if the characters are used, included as a part of a value line.

Is there please an applicable reference page somewhere, or a topic here already to refer to?

My motivation is the possiblity of a creative use if included intelligently.

-- RH.

[ronverdonk]

I think the answer is not that simple to get. Usually there are 3 reasons to have reserved words or characters:

1. they are part of the language itself (such as $_POST or isset) and would confuse any compiler or interpreter
2. they are difficult to parse and the designers want to prevent difficult parsing (e.g. you don't want to write 1000 lines of code just to intercept a bracket)
3. they are used (reserved) for internal program purposes only

In case 2 and 3 you will not find it in any public documents, for the simple reason that "what you publish will me (mis)used". Meaning that, once you have publicly documented it, people will write programs that use it (see your own statement "My motivation is the possiblity of a creative use if included intelligently"), count on it that it will not change (it's documented, isn't it?) and the designers are no longer free to use or change it at will.

The only resource for this can be found in the design and development documentation of PHP itself, I don't think they will show you that.

Ronald :cool:

[perplexity]

Thanks for the reply.

I am wondering if anybody at all knows what is supposed to happen.

My enquiry was prompted by trying to write "[null]" as an ini file key value, just to see what would happen. The script echoed the parsed version onto the html page as just that, "null" as text, so then I am thinking "what the hell is going on here then?" because php.net says quite specifically that

Values null, no and false results in ""

What now bothers me is the actual wording of this advice on php.net

"...must not be used anywhere in the key and have a special meaning in the value."

If it simply said

"must not be used anywhere in the key or the value",

one would leave it that, fair enough, but "special meaning" seems to imply that there may be a valid, albeit obscure use intended and possible for special purposes, even if it is only for something as mundane as excluding a part of the file value from the parsed value.

Knowing for instance that the quotation mark works in an ini file just as it ordinarily would to set a php variable, it is reeasonable to suppose that the other special characters would be useable.