[Python-Dev] ConfigParser stuff (was: CVS: python/dist/src/Lib ConfigParser.py,1.16,1.17)

[Greg Stein]

On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, Jeremy Hylton wrote:
> Thanks for catching that.  I didn't look at the context.  I'm going to
> wait, though, until I talk to Fred to mess with the code any more.

Not a problem. I'm glad that diffs are now posted to -checkins. :-)

> General question for python-dev readers: What are your experiences
> with ConfigParser?

Love it!

> I just used it to build a simple config parser for
> IDLE and found it hard to use for several reasons.  The biggest
> problem was that the file format is undocumented.

In my most complex use of ConfigParser, I had to override SECTCRE to allow
periods in the section name. Of course, that was quite interesting since
the variable is __SECTRE in 1.5.2 (i.e. I had to compensate for the
munging).

I also change OPTCRE to allow a few more charaters ("@" in particular,
which even the update doesn't do). Not a problem nowadays since those are
public.

My subclass also defines a set() method and a delsection() method. These
are used because I write the resulting changes back out to a file. It
might be nice to have a method which writes out a config file (with an
"AUTOGENERATED BY ConfigParser.py -- DO NOT EDIT BY HAND"; or maybe
"... BY <appname> ...").

> I also found it
> clumsy to have to specify section and option arguments.

I found these were critical in my application. I also take advantage of
the sections in my "edna" application for logical organization.

> I ended up
> writing a proxy that specializes on section so that get takes only an
> option argument.
> 
> It sounds like ConfigParser code and docs could use a general cleanup.
> Are there any other issues to take care of as part of that cleanup?

A set() method and a writefile() type of method would be nice.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/