Adding first draft of README.

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spf13 2014-04-05 15:44:26 -04:00
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@ -2,3 +2,93 @@ viper
=====
Go configuration with fangs
## What is Viper?
Viper is a complete configuration solution. Designed to work within an
application to handle file based configuration and seamlessly marry that with
command line flags which can also be used to control application behavior.
## Why Viper?
When building a modern application you dont want to have to worry about
configuration file formats, you want to focus on building awesome software.
Viper is here to help with that.
Viper does the following for you:
1. Find, load and marshall a configuration file in YAML, TOML or JSON.
2. Provide a mechanism to setDefault values for your different configuration options
3. Provide a mechanism to setOverride values for options specified through command line flags.
4. Provide an alias system to easily rename parameters without breaking existing code.
5. Make it easy to tell the difference between when a user has provided a command line or config file which is the same as the default.
Viper believes that:
1. command line flags take precedence over options set in config files
2. config files take precedence over defaults
Config files often can be found in multiple locations. Viper allows you to set
multiple paths to search for the config file in.
Viper configuration keys are case insensitive.
## Usage
### Initialization
viper.SetConfigName("config") // name of config file (without extension)
viper.AddConfigPath("/etc/appname/") // path to look for the config file in
viper.AddConfigPath("$HOME/.appname") // call multiple times to add many search paths
viper.ReadInConfig() // Find and read the config file
### Setting Defaults
viper.SetDefault("ContentDir", "content")
viper.SetDefault("LayoutDir", "layouts")
viper.SetDefault("Indexes", map[string]string{"tag": "tags", "category": "categories"})
### Setting Overrides
viper.Set("Verbose", true)
viper.Set("LogFile", LogFile)
### Registering and Using Aliases
viper.RegisterAlias("loud", "Verbose")
viper.Set("verbose", true) // same result as next line
viper.Set("loud", true) // same result as prior line
viper.GetBool("loud") // true
viper.GetBool("verbose") // true
### Getting Values
viper.GetString("logfile") // case insensitive Setting & Getting
if viper.GetBool("verbose") {
fmt.Println("verbose enabled")
}
## Q & A
Q: Why not INI files?
A: Ini files are pretty awful. Theres no standard format and they are hard to
validate. Viper is designed to work with YAML, TOML or JSON files. If someone
really wants to add this feature, Id be happy to merge it. Its easy to
specify which formats your application will permit.
Q: Why viper?
A: Viper is designed to be a companion to
[Cobra](http://github.com/spf13/cobra). While both can operate completely
independently, together they make a powerful pair to handle much of your
application foundation needs.
Q: Why Cobra?
A: Is there a better name for a commander?