• Comments - any line with first non-blank character ";" is ignored and can be used for comments. Currently any incorrect line is ignored but this behavior may change in the future thus use only lines beginning with ";" for comments.
• Section. Section is a container of the other data units and may contain subsections. Section may have bundled class. If so the application is able to automatically create object of the class by default initialized with the content of the section. General section syntax is:

              { Section_Name: (Bundled_class_name)
                ; Some content
              } Section_Name;

  Section name - There must be at least one blank character between "{" and the section name. Name can contain spaces and any other except ":<cr><lf>". Name ends with the ":" character. after the ":" bundled class can be specified but it is optional.
  Bundled class - If present name must be closed in a "( )" brackets. The name of the class can contain spaces and strict format is not defined but recommended format is (GeneralPurpose.VendorName.Name[.Subname]).

• Record - record is a collection of the record entries with the same name found in a particular section.
  • Record entry - is a line as:
    (int)Record1=5
    or
    (string)Record10=Some string value
    Every record entry defines a single value for the record. Thus the following lines define a record MyRecord with 3 values:
    (int)MyRecord=1
    (string)MyRecord=A string
    (float)MyRecord=3.14
    Value defined by the record entry can have a value name:
    (int)MyRecord[value_name]=3
    This syntax is rarely used and if the part in the "[ ]" brackets is omitted defined value is unnamed.
    Record values defined by the record entries have strict type specification defined in the "( )" brackets placed before the name. There is no default type thus every record entry must have a type specified.
    General record entry syntax can be generally described as:
    (type_name)Record_name[Value_name]=Value
    Where:
    • type_name can be one of the following type names:
      int - 32-bit signed integer value
      float - 32 bit floating point value
      double - 64 bit floating point value
      string - string - can not contain new line or line feed characters
      int64 - 64 bit signed integer value
      More types are internally available but are not used in configuration files.
    • Record_name - Assigns the record entry to the record with the name given. May contain any characters except "=[]" and new line and line feed.
    • Value_name - optional. If present must be closed in the "[ ]" brackets. May contain the same characters as the Record_name. Defines a name for the value - meaningful only if the component using the record needs it.
    • Value - Value defined with the record entry. Syntax depends on the type of the entry.

There are several extended syntax forms not described here because they are not used in the configuration files. Below two samples are listed. They do not apply to the ALP itself but demonstrate the configurations syntax:

Sample 1:

        { First section:
            (int)User=1
            (string)User=Smith
            { Logon: (LogonScreen.ACME.SimpleLogon)
                (int)top=100
                (int)left=200
            } Logon;
        } First section;
        

Suppose that this section defines settings for some authentication procedure. Logon subsection is used to define what component will display the "Logon" dialog and contains values used by the component to determine the position of the dialog. External section - First Section contains two record entries for the record "User". Suppose that the integer value is used to determine if the password will be kept in some cache and the string value defines the user name.

Sample 2:

        { Object101: (Shape.ACME.Rectangle)
            (int)width=100
            (int)height=200
            (string)Text=Shape 101
            { Brush: (Brushe.ACME.OneColor)
                (int)Red=255
                (int)Green=255
                (int)Blue=0
            } Brush;
            { Pen: (Pen.ACME.Solid)
                (int)thickness=6
                (int)Red=80
                (int)Green=128
                (int)Blue=64
            } Pen;
            { TextSettings: (TextWriter.ACME.Default)
                (int)Size=10
                (int)Bold=1
                (int)Italic=0
                (string)Face=Arial
                (string)Face=Times
            } TextSettings;
        } Object101;
        

This section may represent graphic object in a graphical application. Every subsection defines component responsible for a particular actions as frame drawing or filling and holds the settings required by the component. For example TextSettings section may represent the component that displays the text in the drawing object. It has two Face record entries. Thus there is a record named Face with list of the fonts that can be used in the preferred order.