I cannot update ini file. Treating ini file as hastable in Powershell

Question

I need to update ini configuration file. I managed to convert the file to hastable and updating values. But when I check if the changes are correct in the file, it hasn't changed. Add-Content doesn't work. do I need to convert to String to use Add-Content function?

Configuration file is filled with plain text also.

"ini" Configuration file:

[sqlScript1Deployment]

sqlServerName                         = '??????????'
olapServerName                        = '??????????'
(...)

My ps1 code:

[hashtable]$ht = Get-Configuration($iniFilepath)
$ht["sqlScript1Deployment"]["sqlServerName"] = 'Master'

$ht | Add-Content $iniFilepath

Expected code in "ini" file:

[sqlScript1Deployment]
sqlServerName                         = 'Master'

Actual result in "ini" file:

[sqlScript1Deployment]
sqlServerName                         = '??????????'

You generally can't send a hashtable directly to a file with `Set-Content` / `Add-Content`. `Out-File` gives you a human-readable representation, but that's not suitable for programmatic processing. You'll either have to create a complementary `Set-Configuration` function or use existing third-party solutions for managing INI files. As an aside: Avoid pseudo-method syntax such as `Get-Configuration($iniFilepath)`; the right way to make this call is `Get-Configuration $iniFilepath` — mklement0, Jan 03 '19 at 16:12
Possible duplicate of [Powershell INI editing](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22802043/powershell-ini-editing) — , Jan 03 '19 at 17:32

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 04 '19 at 10:58

I have no idea where you got the Get-Configuration function from, but if it creates a hashtable where each Key is a Section for the INI and every Value is a name/value pair like this:

$ht = @{
    'sqlScript1Deployment' = @{
        'sqlServerName'  = '??????????'
        'olapServerName' = '??????????'
    }
}

The following code may help:

# set the new value for sqlServerName
$ht['sqlScript1Deployment']['sqlServerName'] = 'Master'

# write the Hashtable back to disk as .INI file
$sb = New-Object -TypeName System.Text.StringBuilder

# the Keys are the Sections in the Ini file
# the properties are name/value pairs within these keys
foreach ($section in $ht.Keys) {
    [void]$sb.AppendLine("[$section]")
    foreach ($name in $ht[$section].Keys) {
        $value = $ht[$section][$name]
        # the value needs to be quoted when:
        # - it begins or ends with whitespace characters
        # - it contains single or double quote characters
        # - it contains possible comment characters ('#' or ';')
        if ($value -match '^\s+|[#;"'']|\s+$') {
            # escape quotes inside the value and surround the value with double quote marks
            $value = '"' + ($value -replace '(["''])', '\$1') + '"'
        }
        [void]$sb.AppendLine("$name = $value")
    }
}

$sb.ToString() | Out-File $iniFilepath
[void]$sb.Clear()

The resulting file will look like this:

[sqlScript1Deployment]
sqlServerName = Master
olapServerName = ??????????

I cannot update ini file. Treating ini file as hastable in Powershell

1 Answers1