How to read a config file using python

Question

I have a config file abc txt which looks somewhat like   path1    D  test1 first  path2    D  test2 second  path3    D  test2 third    I want to read these paths from the abc txt to use it in my program to avoid hard coding

User · Answer

You need a section in your file    My Section  path1   D  test1 first path2   D  test2 second path3   D  test2 third   Then  read the properties   import ConfigParser  config   ConfigParser ConfigParser   config readfp open r abc txt    path1   config get  My Section    path1   path2   config get  My Section    path2   path3   config get  My Section    path3

User · Answer

This looks like valid Python code  so if the file is on your project s classpath  and not in some other directory or in arbitrary places  one way would be just to rename the file to  abc py  and import it as a module  using import abc  You can even update the values using the reload function later  Then access the values as abc path1 etc   Of course  this can be dangerous in case the file contains other code that will be executed  I would not use it in any real  professional project  but for a small script or in interactive mode this seems to be the simplest solution   Just put the abc py into the same directory as your script  or the directory where you open the interactive shell  and do import abc or from abc import

User · Answer

In order to use my example Your file  abc txt  needs to look like    your-config  path1    D  test1 first  path2    D  test2 second  path3    D  test2 third    Then in your software you can use the config parser   import ConfigParser   and then in you code    configParser   ConfigParser RawConfigParser       configFilePath   r c  abc txt   configParser read configFilePath    Use case   self path   configParser get  your-config    path1      Edit   human js   in python 3  ConfigParser is renamed to configparser  as described here

User · Answer

Since your config file is a normal text file  just read it using the open function   file   open  abc txt    r   content   file read   paths   content split   n    split it into lines for path in paths      print path split        1    This will print your paths  You can also store them using dictionaries or lists   path list      path dict      for path in paths      p   path split            path list append p  1      path dict p 0     p 1    More on reading writing file here  Hope this helps

User · Answer

A convenient solution in your case would be to include the configs in a yaml file named   your config name yml   which would look like this  path1   quot D  test1 first quot  path2   quot D  test2 second quot  path3   quot D  test2 third quot   In your python code you can then load the config params into a dictionary by doing this  import yaml with open  your config name yml   as stream      config   yaml safe load stream   You then access e g  path1 like this from your dictionary config  config  path1    To import yaml you first have to install the package as such  pip install pyyaml into your chosen virtual environment

User · Answer

If you need to read all values from a section in properties file in a simple manner  Your config cfg file layout    SECTION NAME    key1   value1   key2   value2    You code     import configparser     config   configparser RawConfigParser      config read  path to config cfg file           details dict   dict config items  SECTION NAME     This will give you a dictionary where keys are same as in config file and their corresponding values  details dict is     key1   value1    key2   value2    Now to get key1 s value   details dict  key1   Putting it all in a method which reads sections from config file only once the first time the method is called during a program run   def get config dict        if not hasattr get config dict   config dict            get config dict config dict   dict config items  SECTION NAME        return get config dict config dict  Now call the above function and get the required key s value   config details   get config dict   key 1 value   config details  key1       Generic Multi Section approach   SECTION NAME 1    key1   value1   key2   value2     SECTION NAME 2    key1   value1   key2   value2  Extending the approach mentioned above  reading section by section automatically and then accessing by section name followed by key name  def get config section        if not hasattr get config section   section dict            get config section section dict   collections defaultdict                    for section in config sections                get config section section dict section    dict config items section            return get config section section dict  To access  config dict   get config section    port   config dict  DB    port      here  DB  is a section name in config file and  port  is a key under section  DB

[python] How to read a config file using python

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