ConfigParser: writes a list but reads a string?

[Terry Carroll]

It looks like ConfigParser will accept a list to be writing to the
*.ini file; but when reading it back in, it treats it as a string.

Example:

############### ############### #
import ConfigParser
def whatzit(thingna me, thing):
print thingname, "value:", thing
print thingname, "length:", len(thing)
print thingname, type(thing)

cfgfile = "cfgtest.in i"
config1 = ConfigParser.Co nfigParser()
config1.add_sec tion("test")

t1 = range(1,11)
config1.set("te st", "testlist", t1)
outfile=open(cf gfile,"w")
config1.write(o utfile)
outfile.close()

config2 = ConfigParser.Co nfigParser()
config2.read(cf gfile)
t2 = config2.get("te st","testlist ")

whatzit("t1", t1)
whatzit("t2", t2)

############### ############### #

Output is:

t1 value: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
t1 length: 10
t1 <type 'list'>
t2 value: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
t2 length: 31
t2 <type 'str'>

That is, t1 is a list of length 10, consisting of:
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
and is written out; but t2 is read back in as a string
"[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]"
of length 31.

It took me a while to figure this out, since they looked identical in
print statements.

Is there a pythonic way to read in a list from a .INI file with
ConfigParser? Is this expected behavior for ConfigParser? I would
not expect this conversion; rather, an exception when trying to write
the list if the list is not supported.

[Fuzzyman]

Jeffrey Barish wrote:

funkyj wrote:

making the config file XML and using xml.dom is another option,
although XML is a bit ugly to edit by hand.
--jfc
I am seriously intrigued by ConfigObj. I am currently using an crude
improvisation involving tab-delimited fields to store metadata for
recordings -- not configuration data -- in text files. I had been planning
to convert to XML, but now I am wondering whether ConfigObj would be
easier. I would like for the metadata files to be editable, but editing
does not have to be easy as it needs to be done rarely. I've never used
XML, so I am wondering whether there are other tradeoffs between that
approach and ConfigObj that I should be aware of. I was thinking of XML
mainly to have a more robust format. For example, it would be nice if it
were possible to add fields without obsoleting early versions of the
reader. Crossplatform compatibility is also desirable.

ConfigObj can be used for all sorts of data persistence type uses.
Because it is pure python there are likely to be no cross platform
issues.

You would have to 'name' entries, but entries can be single values or
lists - or even subsections (effectively dictionaries).

If you are happy with text, then it is *very* easy to use. If you
wanted to store other datatypes, then you may be interested in
ConfigPersist.p y :
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/a...sistence.shtml

It is easy to use a validating configspec, and then extend it - without
obsoleting earlier code or data files.

All the best,

Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml
--
Jeffrey Barish