ini file extension

ini file is a file extension, a data format for configuration and setup files for software applications.

It is mostly used in Windows applications and a similar to properties files

These files contain configuration values and are very popularly used by the Windows Operating System.

ini files look like properties files with additional features such as comments, and headers.

ini has abbreviated Initialize values as language, and it is a new file format.

It uses for specifying data in configurations similar to text files.

Usually, each software or application has some configuration data. We used to have a property file with key and value pairs like key=value.

The property files are not suitable when there is a complex configuration structure. INI file is suitable for representing data in hash table format and easy to read and write the data using various programming languages.

windows provide two Ini files, system.ini, and windows.ini files by default, So many applications during shipping the product to the client has configurations in ini format.

Advantages of INI file extension

  • It is human-readable for simple configuration and settings
  • Support all popular languages - GO, Java, Python, JavaScript, etc.
  • Supports Comments
  • Maintainable
  • Read and write capabilities
  • the content of these files looks like windows init format

INI file Disadvantages

  • Numbers like NAN and infinity are not supported
  • No support for binary data
  • Complex values like the table are not supported

INI file use cases

  • INI can be used in any type of project for configuration settings
  • Windows uses configuration settings for drivers, keyboards, mouses
  • Configuration and settings of the software applications

INI file extension

Initialize configuration in a file with extension .INI, You can use any IDE or text editor to open this file.

Ini File extension rules

  • Ini files extension is .ini by default
  • file supports UTF-8 encoding format only
  • Supports whitespaces, tabs, and newlines asci code

MIME format type - text/plain

MIME is abbreviated as Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions which is a format specified in request and response that is transferred between client and server across the internet. Content-Type and Accept headers in a request object are specified with this format following is the mime type for these documents

  • text/plain and request contains the below value for INI data sending over the internet

  • Content-type : text/plain

ini file Editors

All the popular IDE supports the INI file extension and provides plugins to validate the INI file content.

  • Notepad++
  • Eclipse
  • Visual Studio Code