Best way to store config or preferences in a multi-platform way.

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 2008-05-01 13:37, Lance Gamet wrote:
> Hi, python beginner starting a new project here.
> 
> This project will store most of its actual data in a shared-database, but 
> I have a small amount of user specific data that I need to be stored like 
> configuration or preferences for example, the list of databases that the 
> program should connect to.
> 
> On Unix this might be a .file, on windows this could be in the registry, 
> or an ini file or an xml file in ProgramData or AppData or something.
> 
> Is there a pythony way to store such config data, perhaps there is 
> already a standard python package for such a purpose?

I don't think this is a Python question, but more a platform
question. Users on different platforms will expect configuration
data in different places. It's usually best to stick to the platform
conventions.

Python has modules available for accessing INI-files, XML-files
and also for the Windows registry, so that part is easy.

> My app uses Qt, and Qt has its method of doing it (QSettings), but for 
> architectural reasons I don't want to use it.
> 
> Could sqlite be an option perhaps? I am still undecided if the ability 
> for the user to edit the file independently of the program is a good or 
> bad thing.

If the user is meant to change the data, then you should make this
easy for the user. Putting such data into SQLite will not satisfy that
requirement :-)

If you don't have a GUI tool for the user to change config settings,
then it's probably best to put the configuration into a file that's
easy to edit, e.g. an INI file.

Here's a nice module that supports both reading and writing
INI files:

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/configobj.html

-- 
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