Config Handler

Handle config files in your projects the easy way.

Installation

> pip install config-handler

Rules

Rule #1

Use INI files for config.
Regarding that please follow INI file language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file

Rule #2

Use only strings, integers and booleans.
If you need to use anything else, the design isn't right.

Rule #3

Don't put your config file (config.ini) in git repository.
Instead you have a config template file (config.ini.template).

Rule #4

Config file should contain ONLY the stuff that could be changed by user.
If you have the data that will never change, use constants.

Config template file

This is how config.ini.template file should look like:

config.ini.template file supports template variables (${project_root_path}).

Usage

Scenario #1

You are running your app for the first time and config.ini doesn't exist yet.
So you need to create it from config.ini.template file (use template variables if needed):

import os
from config_handler import ConfigHandler

template_config_variables = {
    'project_root_path': os.path.join('path', 'to', 'project', 'root')
}
ConfigHandler('./config.ini').sync(template_config_variables)

After this call, config.ini file was created in the same directory where config.ini.template is located and should look like this:

Scenario #2

Now read your newly created config.ini:

from config_handler import ConfigHandler

config = ConfigHandler('./config.ini').read()

print(config.sections())
# >>> ['app1', 'app2']

print(dict(config['DEFAULT']))
# >>> {'send_email': 'true', 'authenticate_user': 'true'}

print(dict(config['app1']))
# >>> {'send_email': 'false', 'line_height': '12', 'input_path': 'path/to/project/root/input/app1', 'authenticate_user': 'true'}

print(config['DEFAULT']['send_email'])
# >>> 'true'

print(config['app1']['front_page_title'])
# >>> 'Hello World!'

print(config.getboolean('DEFAULT', 'send_email'))
# >>> True

print(config.getboolean('app2', 'send_email'))
# >>> False

.read() returns ConfigParser objects from python's native Configuration file parser lib

Scenario #3

User made some changes in config.ini file:

And some changes are made in config.ini.template file by the developers:

Then you need to run sync again:

import os
from config_handler import ConfigHandler

template_config_variables = {
    'project_root_path': os.path.join('path', 'to', 'project', 'root')
}
ConfigHandler('./config.ini').sync(template_config_variables)

After the sync, config.ini file should look like this:

So, what user changes or adds stays in config.ini.
Everything new that was added in config.ini.template was added in config.ini as well.

Scenario #4

You can sync and read at the same time:

from config_handler import ConfigHandler

config = ConfigHandler('./config.ini').sync({...}).read()

...

Exception handling

from config_handler import (ConfigHandler, 
                            ConfigHandlerException,
                            ConfigHandlerFileReadException)

try:
    config = ConfigHandler('./config.ini').sync({...}).read()

except ConfigHandlerFileReadException:
    """Read exceptions"""

except ConfigHandlerException:
    """All Config Handler exceptions"""