I'm not sure what you mean. you want to create an ini file based on what the user enters? or you want to parse the file depending on what they enter? what do you mean when you say, "so that if you entered either 2 or asdf2 it would do the same thing"? what are you entering this data into? what is "the same thing"?

if you're having a hard time explaining this, then the easiest way might be to give a real world example so that what you're saying isn't so vague.