In Memory INI File Writer

Question

Hello,

I have an MFC app which is wizard based. The App asks a user a variable number of questions which are then written to an INI file which is later encrypted when the user clicks Finish.

All the INI file parsers I have seen so far seen read or write to a physical file on Disk. I don't want to do this as the INI file contains confidential information. Instead I would like the INI file to be only based in memory and never written to disk in an un-encrypted form.

As the app allows users to go back and change answers, It occurred to me that I could use an in memory Database for this purpose but again I do not want anything written to Disk and don't want to ship a DB with my app if it can be avoided.

I have to use an INI file as it the file when un-encrypted will be processed by a 3rd party.

Any suggestions welcomed.

Thanks..

Answer 1

I have an IniFile C++ class which allows you to work with Ini files in memory: http://www.lemonteam.com/downloads/inifile.h

It's a short, well documented single .h file. Sample usage:

IniFile if ( "myinifile.ini" );

if.SetString( "mykey", "myvalue" );


// Nothing gets actually written to disk until you call Flush(), Close() or the object is deleted
if.Flush();
if.Close();

You should be able to modify the Flush() method so that it applies some kind of encryption to the saved data.

Answer 2

Sounds like a good application for a memory-mapped file, since you can control when your in-memory view gets flushed back to the file on disk.

Answer 3

Why would you need to have it in an ini file format if it is never stored to disk?

Why not just keep it in memory as a data structure and use your normal ini file methods to write it to disk when you want to.

Answer 4

If you don't want to save into file, what is the point of using INI file then? INI API is bascially a property bag or key value pair based on disk file. If you don't want to use file, I suggest you use your own hash or dictionary data structure to store the key value parirs