A simple regular expression that can parse the input file shown earlier may look like this:
^(?!#)(\w+)\s*=\s*([\w\d]+[\w\d._,\-:]*)$
This regular expression is supposed to ignore all lines that start with a #; for those that do not start with #, match a name followed by the equal sign and then a value that can be composed of alphanumeric characters and several other characters (underscore, dot, comma, and so on). The exact meaning of this regular expression is explained as follows:
| Part | Description |
| ^ | Start of line |
| (?!#) | A negative lookahead that makes sure that it is not possible to match the # character |
| (\w)+ | A capturing group representing an identifier of at least a one word character |
| \s* | Any white spaces |
