Config-gen 1.0-alpha6

Utility to generate configuration files

This project was born to generate dhcp/dns configuration files on a machine which resources are too limited to run a LDAP server.

What it basically does is:

• Load a bunch of files from a directory, and make them accessible in a dictionary.

• Render a bunch of files through some template engine, passing the context.

Installation

Production version:

$ pip install config-gen

Development version:

$ pip install -e [e-mail]:rshk/config-gen.git#egg=config-gen

Or just run python setup.py install from the source directory.

Trying out

The fastest way to get started with config-gen is the quickstart script, that takes care of creating all the needed directories plus a Makefile, in the current directory:

$ confgen-quickstart
$ make
$ cat build/example.html
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>

How does it work?

In a very simple way: all files in the templates directory are built into files in build, with the original extension stripped. Eg:

templates/hello.jinja -> build/hello
templates/hello.html.jinja -> build/hello.html
templates/example.html.jinja -> build/example.html

The context for rendered files is built from files in the data directory. To each file in that directory, a “reader” is associated, by reading the file extension.

Then, a context variable with the same name of the file (without extension) will be made available in the template.

Included readers

Readers are used to read data files and make them accessible in the template context.

Their name (without extension) must be unique all around the data directory, to prevent conflicts.

txt (config_gen.readers.read_txt.txt_reader)

Loads a plain text file, returning its raw content directly.

py (config_gen.readers.read_py.PyFileAccessor)

Loads and returns a Python module.

The module content will then be fully accessible from the template.

json (config_gen.readers.read_json.json_reader)

Reads a JSON file and returns it directly. It will then be accessible as usual from the template.

csv (config_gen.readers.read_csv.csv_reader)

Reads a Comma-Separated Values file into a list of tuples.

The CSV file must be comma-separated (semicolons are not supported). Fields containing commas must be enclosed in double quotes.

ini (config_gen.readers.read_ini.IniFileReader)

Reader for configuration/.ini files.

Files will be accessible as:

{{ filename.section.option }}

Or, for sections/options containing dots:

{{ filename["my.sect.ion"]["my.opt.ion"] }}

Template engines

To render the templates into configuration files, the awesome Jinja2 template engine has been used.

I once thought about allowing pluggable template engines, but the awesomeness of Jinja made me rethink that decision :)

(By the way, just let me know if you’d absolutely need support for another template engine, and why..)

Testing

To run the complete test suite:

$ python -m unittest discover -s tests

To run only tests in a specific sub-module:

$ python -m unittest tests.test_something

TODO-List

• Add support for XML/YAML files

• Add support for database connections (sqlite, mysql, postgres, mongo..)

• Add support for “custom cases”, through some kind of configuration file * Eg. for semicolon-separated CSV files

• Add support for importing external readers (add a --load option?)

• Write the missing test cases