INI duplicate entry issue

[stavrosfa]

When a .INI file has a duplicate entry, the game doesn't crash, but it doesn't load the unit art and also doesn't behave like a unit (can't move/fight, etc)

As an example, Tank has 2 DEAD entries under [Sound Effects].

This looks like a library issue that has also stopped being updated for several years now.
https://github.com/rickyah/ini-parser

Pasting (part of) the exception here so you don't have to replicate

IniParser.Exceptions.ParsingException: Duplicated key 'DEAD' found in section 'Sound Effects while parsing line number 0 with value '' - IniParser version: 2.5.2.0 while parsing line number 78 with value 'DEAD=' - IniParser version: 2.5.2.0
 ---> IniParser.Exceptions.ParsingException: Duplicated key 'DEAD' found in section 'Sound Effects while parsing line number 0 with value '' - IniParser version: 2.5.2.0
   at IniParser.Parser.IniDataParser.HandleDuplicatedKeyInCollection(String key, String value, KeyDataCollection keyDataCollection, String sectionName)
   at IniParser.Parser.IniDataParser.AddKeyToKeyValueCollection(String key, String value, KeyDataCollection keyDataCollection, String sectionName)
   at IniParser.Parser.IniDataParser.ProcessKeyValuePair(String line, IniData currentIniData)
   at IniParser.Parser.IniDataParser.ProcessLine(String currentLine, IniData currentIniData)
   at IniParser.Parser.IniDataParser.Parse(String iniDataString)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at IniParser.Parser.IniDataParser.Parse(String iniDataString)
   at IniParser.StreamIniDataParser.ReadData(StreamReader reader)
   at IniParser.FileIniDataParser.ReadFile(String filePath, Encoding fileEncoding)
   at IniParser.FileIniDataParser.ReadFile(String filePath)
   at AnimationManager.getINIData(String pathKey) in C:\Users\Stavros\Documents\C7\C7-Prototype\C7\Animations\AnimationManager.cs:line 66
   at AnimationManager.getUnitINIData(String unitTypeName) in C:\Users\Stavros\Documents\C7\C7-Prototype\C7\Animations\AnimationManager.cs:line 112
   at AnimationManager.getUnitFlicFilepath(UnitPrototype unit, AnimatedAction action) in C:\Users\Stavros\Documents\C7\C7-Prototype\C7\Animations\AnimationManager.cs:line 117
   at AnimationManager.LoadAnimation(UnitPrototype unit, AnimatedAction action) in C:\Users\Stavros\Documents\C7\C7-Prototype\C7\Animations\AnimationManager.cs:line 178

What could we do here?
Find another library that is actively maintained? I looked around, it doesn't look promising...
Create and maintain our own fork of this, fixing issues ad hoc (meh) ?
Write our own tiny parser (hmm) ?
Modify through code known problematic source files (ew no) ?

[ethhics]

Looks like, digging through it:

1. Per your trace's first line, the library is detecting a duplicated key, but the default behavior is to throw an exception
2. This behavior can be changed in the parser's configuration, either by passing in a customized IniParserConfiguration when instantiating the parser, or by modifying the parser's config after instantiation but before parsing (This is just the example the wiki points to for how to do it)
3. So all that needs to happen is AnimationManager.getINIData() should change to configure the new FileIniDataParser() before it calls FileIniDataParser.ReadFile(), and you'll set AllowDuplicateKeys = true and possibly more

Doing all that is of course an exercise left to the reader

[stavrosfa]

Wow, thanks! Passing a custom configuration actually worked!

Pretty much the solution, it just needs to get updated in several places (just to be safe) as we create multiple FileIniDataParser objects. Perhaps we can even tidy this up and add only one reference in a more centralized place.

FileIniDataParser parser =  new FileIniDataParser();
parser.Parser.Configuration.AllowDuplicateKeys = true;
parser.Parser.Configuration.OverrideDuplicateKeys = true;

That was a poor investigation on my end as it seems, although I went through the code briefly and saw there was a configuration that was mentioned/used, I just didn't realize that we could pass our own.

What threw me off was it throwing an exception, I would expect/want to see something like "I threw an exeption because of a duplicate key, but if you want you can configure this behaviour blah blah blah".

I will remove the bug tag (and add a skill issue tag 🥲)