Description

This module is an extension to Python's standard configparser module that adds file and line number information to each stored option. This is primarily useful in reporting error messages: you can point your user to exactly where a bad value occurred:

try:
    timeout = config.getint('connection', 'retry')
except ValueError:
    filename, line = config.get_location('connection', 'retry')
    logging.error("retry must be an integer (%s:%d)", filename, line)
    ...

This package is compatible with both Python 2 and 3.

Installation

Install with pip:

$ pip install configlines

Usage

Given the following two configuration files:

# Line one of data1.cfg
[some_section]
foo = 1

[DEFAULT]
bar = 2

# Line one of data2.cfg
[some_section]
baz = 3

You can read and manipulate them exactly the same as the standard module:

>>> from configlines import ConfigParser
>>> cfg = ConfigParser()
>>> cfg.read(['data1.cfg', 'data2.cfg'])
>>> cfg.get('some_section', 'foo')
'1'

You can also access file and line information:

>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'foo')
('data1.cfg', 3)
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'bar')
('data1.cfg', 6)
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'baz')
('data2.cfg', 3)

In addition to get_location, this module also provides get_line and get_filename functions for convenience.

If an option didn't come from a file, (i.e., you set it programmatically,) then line number information will not be present:

>>> cfg.set('some_section', 'qwerty', '1234')
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'qwerty')
None

Overwriting options programmatically will erase line number information:

>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'foo')
('data1.cfg', 3)
>>> cfg.set('some_section', 'foo', '1234')
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'foo')
None

Line number information can be set explicitly:

>>> cfg.set('some_section', 'foo', '1234', location=('somefile.cfg',10))
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'foo')
('somefile.cfg', 10)
>>> cfg.set('some_section', 'foo', '1234', location='preserve')
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'foo')
('somefile.cfg', 10)
>>> cfg.set_location('some_section', 'foo', ('otherfile.cfg', 50))
>>> cfg.get_location('some_section', 'foo')
('otherfile.cfg', 50)