Header Config Parser

A Rust library for parsing hierarchical configuration files using Markdown-style headers, transforming nested sections into flat key-value pairs with namespaced keys.

Features

• 📂 Header-based namespacing
• ➕ Automatic key hierarchy flattening
• 🧹 Whitespace-tolerant parsing
• 🚦 Empty value handling
• 🔍 Simple string-based lookups

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
header-config = "0.1"

File Format Specification

Basic Syntax

# Server Config

port 8080
timeout 30

# Database

host localhost
user admin

## Replica

host replica.db

Key Features

• Headers create namespaces using # symbols
• Keys are whitespace-separated from values
• Empty values allowed (key without value)
• Nesting with subheaders (## Subsection)

Parsing Rules

• Header levels determine namespace depth
• It's not allowed to go more than one header level deeper at once
• Keys inherit all parent header namespaces
• Case-sensitive matching
• Duplicates aren't allowed

Example

The format looks like this:

key1 value
key2

# HeaderA

key1 value
key2

# HeaderB

key1 value
key2

## SubheaderA

key1 value
key2

## SubheaderB

key1 value
key2

The created mapping will be something like this:

"key1" -> "value"
"key2" -> ""
"HeaderA:key1" -> "value"
"HeaderA:key2" -> ""
"HeaderB:key1" -> "value"
"HeaderB:key2" -> ""
"HeaderB:SubheaderA:key1" -> "value"
"HeaderB:SubheaderA:key2" -> ""
"HeaderB:SubheaderB:key1" -> "value"
"HeaderB:SubheaderB:key2" -> ""