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17 years ago
Warning: parse_ini_files cannot cope with values containing the equal sign (=).

The following function supports sections, comments, arrays, and key-value pairs outside of any section.
Beware that similar keys will overwrite one another (unless in different sections).

<?php
function parse_ini ( $filepath ) {
    $ini = file( $filepath );
    if ( count( $ini ) == 0 ) { return array(); }
    $sections = array();
    $values = array();
    $globals = array();
    $i = 0;
    foreach( $ini as $line ){
        $line = trim( $line );
        // Comments
        if ( $line == '' || $line{0} == ';' ) { continue; }
        // Sections
        if ( $line{0} == '[' ) {
            $sections[] = substr( $line, 1, -1 );
            $i++;
            continue;
        }
        // Key-value pair
        list( $key, $value ) = explode( '=', $line, 2 );
        $key = trim( $key );
        $value = trim( $value );
        if ( $i == 0 ) {
            // Array values
            if ( substr( $line, -1, 2 ) == '[]' ) {
                $globals[ $key ][] = $value;
            } else {
                $globals[ $key ] = $value;
            }
        } else {
            // Array values
            if ( substr( $line, -1, 2 ) == '[]' ) {
                $values[ $i - 1 ][ $key ][] = $value;
            } else {
                $values[ $i - 1 ][ $key ] = $value;
            }
        }
    }
    for( $j=0; $j<$i; $j++ ) {
        $result[ $sections[ $j ] ] = $values[ $j ];
    }
    return $result + $globals;
}
?>

Example usage:
<?php
$stores = parse_ini('stores.ini');
print_r( $stores );
?>

An example ini file:
<?php
/*
;Commented line start with ';'
global_value1 = a string value
global_value1 = another string value

; empty lines are discarded
[Section1]
key = value
; whitespace around keys and values is discarded too
otherkey=other value
otherkey=yet another value
; this key-value pair will overwrite the former.
*/
?>
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