Reading a configuration file in Python (storing/reading nested data with ConfigParser)

Question

I am writing a list processing script that needs to read configuration data about each item in the list. The configuration data is best represented as a nested tree.

I would normally have used YAML for storing the data - but I think that using ConfigParser would be a more Pythonic approach - and make the script more 'transparent' to other Python coders - since a surprising number of people are not familiar with the YAML format.

I have had a very quick look at the configParser documentation, but I have not been able to ascertain whether it can deal with nested data.

My configuration data will have the following structure:

<markers>
    <marker>
        <date></date>
        <value></value>
    </marker>
</markers>
<items>
    <item>
        <start></start>
        <end></end>
        <mcc>
           <chg>
                <date></date>
                <ival></ival>
                <fval></fval>
           </chg>
        </mcc>
    </item>
</items>

Can I use ConfigParser to read/(write ?) this kind of nested data in a config file? (I'm more interested in being able to read than writing the config file. I don't mind manually writing the config file if necessary).

Solution 1

No, configparser doesn't support nesting. You could look at configObj instead. It's mature and quite widely used.

Solution 2

As per your xml data you need section and subsection. So you can use the ConfigParser but you have to give sub section with some meaning like

[markers]
[markers.marker]
date=''
value=''

[items]
[items.item]
start=''
end=''
[items.item.mcc]
[items.item.mcc.chg]
date=''
ival=''
fval=''

Then you have to override the getsection function to get the nested data.