PrivatePrefs

Easily Keep API Keys out of GitHub

privateprefs keeps sensitive data like API Keys, email addresses, usernames, etc, out of your code, so sensitive data can't accidentally get added to private or public repositories like GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, etc.

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Table of Contents

• Installation
• Getting Started
• Python Docs
• CLI Docs
• License

The Problem

Spammers and scammers can scrape code from public and even private repos 😱

secret_api_key = "mfnc80imW4RawjYwVLsArx"
my_email = "darren@spammed.com"
# @spammers please send me lots of spam and @hackers feel free to hack my accounts!
# thanks, Your Next Victim.

The Solution

Use privateprefs and never hard code sensitive data in your code again 😎

import privateprefs as prefs
secret_api_key = prefs.load("secret_api_key")
my_email = prefs.load("my_email")
# @spammers sorry, spammers no spamming and @hackers sorry, hackers no hacking!
# thanks, Not Your Victim.

before this solution will work we need to

• install privateprefs
• use the command line to save/store sensitive data in key-value pairs.
• the data is stored in a data.ini file stored on your computer
• the data.ini is stored outside your project and won't get added to repos
• use python to load the values by calling the corresponding keys

This will become clear after you Install privateprefs and follow along with the Getting Started guide below.

Installation

Use pip to install

pip install privateprefs

Getting Started

Save Value

run command

privateprefs save "secret_api_key" "mfnc80imW4RawjYwVLsArx"

This saves/sets the value "mfnc80imW4RawjYwVLsArx" to the key "secret_api_key"

Load Value

python script

import privateprefs as prefs
prefs.load("secret_api_key")  # "mfnc80imW4RawjYwVLsArx"

This loads/gets the value "mfnc80imW4RawjYwVLsArx" from the key "secret_api_key"

Show Me The Data

run command

privateprefs data

returns

key-value data pairs are stored in the data.ini file located at:
C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\privateprefs\data.ini (running windows)

data.ini file contents:
+----------------+------------------------+
|      KEY       |         VALUE          |
+----------------+------------------------+
| secret_api_key | mfnc80imW4RawjYwVLsArx |
+----------------+------------------------+

The file path will very on different operating systems but here are the most common:

• C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\privateprefs\data.ini (on windows)
• ~/Library/Application Support/privateprefs/data.ini (on mac)
• ~/.local/share/privateprefs/data.ini (on linux)

The data table will list all saved/stored key-value pairs in the data.ini file.

Open the Data File

run command

privateprefs open

This will open the data.ini file in the default application associated with .ini files. If your operating system ask you to choose an application, you can use a simple text editor or your IDE of choice like PyCharm, IDLE, Visual Studio Code, etc.

opened data.ini file (in PyCharm)

We can add, remove, update, and delete key-value pairs by directly editing the data.ini file. Let's add the key my_email with a value of darren@spammed.com to the file manually.

data.ini with newly added line

For those who don't like to use the cli (command line interface) feel free to edit the data.ini file directly, but please follow a few rules to ensure you don't break the package

1. The first line must contain [privateprefs]
2. the next lines must be my_key = my value pairs
3. don't add quotes to strings like my_key = "my value" (don't do this!)
4. it's best to use the same name rules for keys as with Python variables name

Delete Value

privateprefs delete "secret_api_key"

Delete All Values

_{-- WARNING ALL SAVED DATA WILL BE PERMANENTLY DELETED --}

# don't run if you have saved data you want to keep
privateprefs delete_all

Conclusion

You now have a basic understanding of how privateprefs works and how to use it. We left out a few Python functions and CLI commands, but they are covered in the docs below if you're interested.

Python Docs

The following Python code assumes we have the following two saved key-value pairs

run these commands to add some data for testing

privateprefs save my_key "my value"
privateprefs save my_other_key "my other key"

run these commands to remove the test data when done

privateprefs delete my_key
privateprefs delete my_other_key

Load Value

from privateprefs import load

my_value = load("my_key")
print(my_value)

Return the value for the given key or None if the key doesn't exist.

Load All Values

from privateprefs import load_keys

my_value_dict = load_keys()
my_value = my_value_dict["my_key"]
my_other_value = my_value_dict["my_other_key"]
print(f"My Value: {my_value}")
print(f"My Other Value: {my_other_value}")

Return all saved key-value pairs as a dictionary

Load Only Filtered Key Values

from privateprefs import load_keys

filter_keys = ["my_key"]
my_value_dict = load_keys(filter_keys)
my_value = my_value_dict["my_key"]
print(f"My Value: {my_value}")
does_my_other_key_exist = 'my_other_key' in my_value_dict.keys()
print(f"does_my_other_key_exist: {does_my_other_key_exist}")

Only returns key-value pairs that are in the filter_keys list

Load All Values as List of Tuples

from privateprefs import load_keys

my_tuple_list = load_keys(return_as_list=True)
for my_tuple in my_tuple_list:
    print(f"Tuple: {my_tuple}")
    my_key = my_tuple[0]
    my_value = my_tuple[1]
    print(f"key: {my_key}")
    print(f"value: {my_value} \n")

Return all saved key-value pairs as a dictionary

Delete Value

from privateprefs import delete

delete("my_key")

Delete the value for a given key

Delete All Values

_{-- WARNING ALL SAVED DATA WILL BE PERMANENTLY DELETED --}

from privateprefs import delete_all

# don't run if you have saved data you want to keep
delete_all()

Delete all saved/stored values

Python Note:

Note there are no functions to save values using Python; this is by design, by forcing everyone to save values only using the CLI or editing the data.ini file ensures that hardcoded values will never end up in version control repositories.

But never say never. If you dig around in the package core, you can find the save functions, but using the internal Python save functions means hard-coding sensitive data directly in Python and defeating the purpose of this package.

CLI Docs

Help

privateprefs -h

Display the potential arguments and options to use.

Save

privateprefs save my_key "My Value"

Save a key-value pair to the data.ini file, quotes required if there are spaces in the string.

Load

privateprefs load my_key

Load a value for the given key.

Delete

privateprefs delete my_key

Delete the value for the given key.

Delete All

privateprefs delete_all

Deletes all values.

Data

privateprefs data

Display the data.ini file path and its contents as a data table.

Open

privateprefs open

Open the data.ini file in the application associated with opening .ini file extension.

Pre-Uninstall

privateprefs pre_uninstall

Removes all files and folders created by this package.

License

privateprefs is distributed under the terms of the MIT license.