Config & ConfigParser

[Tim Chase]

On 2013-03-05 12:09, Chuck wrote:
> I'm curious about using configuration files.  Can someone tell me
> how they are used?   I'm writing a podcast catcher and would like
> to set up some default configurations, e.g. directory, etc    Other
> than default directory, what are some of the things that are put in
> a configuration file? 

Just looking at my hpodder config file, you can have all sorts of
things in here.  You might have a root folder, but then each feed
could be configured to a particular sub-folder.  You might have a
cache location you download to, and only move them to the final
destination after they've downloaded completely.  You might have
some check more frequently than others. You might have it execute an
external utility (such as id3v2) to transform various ID3 information
based on information in the feed. If you're downloading in multiple
threads, you might have specify the number of threads it can use.  If
you are using "curl" under the covers, you might limit the
transfer-rate so it doesn't suck up your bandwidth.  If you display
anything, you might allow for suppressing the display, formatting
that display, or controlling whether it uses color.  If you track
download errors, you might specify how many failures constitute a
"don't bother retrying this item" or how many days/hours you need to
wait until you actually retry.

You can even have it act as your data-store for holding the URLs to
the RSS feeds, perhaps a readable name (to override what's in the
feed), along with formatting.  So a more complex .ini might look
something like

  [general]
  root=/home/chuck/Music/Podcasts
  cache=/tmp/podchuck
  threads=4
  rate=50k
  color=auto

  [feed "http://feeds.5by5.tv/webahead"]
  display-name=The Web Ahead"
  location=%(root)s/WebAhead/$FILENAME
  transform=id3v2 -a "WebAhead" -t "$EPTITLE" "$FILENAME"

  [feed "http://www.radiolab.org/feeds/podcast"]
  location=/path/to/someplace/else/$FILENAME
  transform=id3v2 -a "Radio Lab" -t "$EPTITLE" "$FILENAME"

-tkc