This function takes a string of text and attempts to interpret it using the
following set of rules...
1. Blank lines are ignored.
2. Lines that start (after the removal of leading whitespace) with a '#'
are ignored.
3. All other lines will first be stripped of leading and trailing
whitespace then searched for a '=' and, if that is not found, a ':'.
If neither of these is found an exception is thrown. If one of them is
found then the line is split around the first occurrence with the part
of the left hand side becoming a key and the part on the right hand
side become a value in the associative array generated.
This function takes a string of text and attempts to interpret it using the following set of rules...
1. Blank lines are ignored. 2. Lines that start (after the removal of leading whitespace) with a '#' are ignored. 3. All other lines will first be stripped of leading and trailing whitespace then searched for a '=' and, if that is not found, a ':'. If neither of these is found an exception is thrown. If one of them is found then the line is split around the first occurrence with the part of the left hand side becoming a key and the part on the right hand side become a value in the associative array generated.