ConfigFile

Helper class to handle INI-style files.

Description

This helper class can be used to store Variant values on the filesystem using INI-style formatting. The stored values are identified by a section and a key:

text

[section]
some_key=42
string_example="Hello World3D!"
a_vector=Vector3(1, 0, 2)

The stored data can be saved to or parsed from a file, though ConfigFile objects can also be used directly without accessing the filesystem.

The following example shows how to create a simple ConfigFile and save it on disc:

gdscript

# Create new ConfigFile object.
var config = ConfigFile.new()

# Store some values.
config.set_value("Player1", "player_name", "Steve")
config.set_value("Player1", "best_score", 10)
config.set_value("Player2", "player_name", "V3geta")
config.set_value("Player2", "best_score", 9001)

# Save it to a file (overwrite if already exists).
config.save("user://scores.cfg")

This example shows how the above file could be loaded:

gdscript

var score_data = {}
var config = ConfigFile.new()

# Load data from a file.
var err = config.load("user://scores.cfg")

# If the file didn't load, ignore it.
if err != OK:
    return

# Iterate over all sections.
for player in config.get_sections():
    # Fetch the data for each section.
    var player_name = config.get_value(player, "player_name")
    var player_score = config.get_value(player, "best_score")
    score_data[player_name] = player_score

Any operation that mutates the ConfigFile such as set_value, clear, or erase_section, only changes what is loaded in memory. If you want to write the change to a file, you have to save the changes with save, save_encrypted, or save_encrypted_pass.

Keep in mind that section and property names can't contain spaces. Anything after a space will be ignored on save and on load.

ConfigFiles can also contain manually written comment lines starting with a semicolon (;). Those lines will be ignored when parsing the file. Note that comments will be lost when saving the ConfigFile. This can still be useful for dedicated server configuration files, which are typically never overwritten without explicit user action.

Note: The file extension given to a ConfigFile does not have any impact on its formatting or behavior. By convention, the .cfg extension is used here, but any other extension such as .ini is also valid. Since neither .cfg nor .ini are standardized, Godot's ConfigFile formatting may differ from files written by other programs.

Methods


void	clear()
String	encode_to_text() const
void	erase_section(section: String)
void	erase_section_key(section: String, key: String)
PackedStringArray	get_section_keys(section: String) const
PackedStringArray	get_sections() const
Variant	get_value(section: String, key: String, default: Variant = null) const
bool	has_section(section: String) const
bool	has_section_key(section: String, key: String) const
Error	load(path: String)
Error	load_encrypted(path: String, key: PackedByteArray)
Error	load_encrypted_pass(path: String, password: String)
Error	parse(data: String)
Error	save(path: String)
Error	save_encrypted(path: String, key: PackedByteArray)
Error	save_encrypted_pass(path: String, password: String)
void	set_value(section: String, key: String, value: Variant)

Method Descriptions

void clear() 🔗

Removes the entire contents of the config.

String encode_to_text() const 🔗

Obtain the text version of this config file (the same text that would be written to a file).

void erase_section(section: String) 🔗

Deletes the specified section along with all the key-value pairs inside. Raises an error if the section does not exist.

void erase_section_key(section: String, key: String) 🔗

Deletes the specified key in a section. Raises an error if either the section or the key do not exist.

PackedStringArray get_section_keys(section: String) const 🔗

Returns an array of all defined key identifiers in the specified section. Raises an error and returns an empty array if the section does not exist.

PackedStringArray get_sections() const 🔗

Returns an array of all defined section identifiers.

Variant get_value(section: String, key: String, default: Variant = null) const 🔗

Returns the current value for the specified section and key. If either the section or the key do not exist, the method returns the fallback default value. If default is not specified or set to null, an error is also raised.

bool has_section(section: String) const 🔗

Returns true if the specified section exists.

bool has_section_key(section: String, key: String) const 🔗

Returns true if the specified section-key pair exists.

Error load(path: String) 🔗

Loads the config file specified as a parameter. The file's contents are parsed and loaded in the ConfigFile object which the method was called on.