============
betterconfig
============
betterconfig provides a more convenient and extensible configuration language,
and a simpler interface built on python's builtin ConfigParser format, along
with a drastically simplified interface for loading configs.
Type Coercion Boilerplate Sucks
===============================
ConfigParser, like many config languages, treats all values as strings,
meaning that when you have configs like this:
::
[config]
foo = 1
bar = a,list,of,strings
baz = just a plain old string
you end up with boilerplate that looks like this:
::
from ConfigParser import ConfigParser
MAP = {
'foo': int,
'bar': lambda x: x.split(','),
'baz': str,
}
c = ConfigParser()
c.read('./foo.cfg')
config = {k:MAP[k](v) for k,v in c.items('config')}
Don't you really wish you could just do this:
::
[config]
foo = 1
bar = ['a', 'list', 'of', 'strings']
baz = "just a plain old string"
and drop the map?
::
import betterconfig
config = betterconfig.load('./foo.cfg')['config']
betterconfig supports all literal types supported by ast.literal_eval_:
strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans, and None.
.. _ast.literal_eval: http://docs.python.org/2/library/ast.html#ast.literal_eval
More Flexibility in Config, Less Config by Module
=================================================
We wanted a config language that was as easy to use as a settings module in
django or flask (and nearly as extensible), but less magical to initialize,
and slightly safer than something like this:
::
import importlib
settings = importlib.import_module('settings')
So we want a config that can do stuff like this:
::
top_level = 'variables defined outside of sections'
include = ['./include.cfg', 'include.d/*.cfg']
[section]
namespaced = True
And we don't want to have to iterate sections or items, we really just want to
load it into a dict:
::
import betterconfig
settings = betterconfig.load('./fancy.cfg')
And if you're really in love with ``.`` notation, you can always do something
silly like make a module ``settings.py`` that does something magical like:
::
import betterconfig
globals().update(betterconfig.load('./fancy.cfg'))
Installing
==========
The betterconfig project lives on github_, and is available via pip_.
.. _github: https://github.com/axialmarket/betterconfig
.. _pip: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/betterconfig/0.3
Installing v0.3 From Pip
------------------------
::
sudo pip install betterconfig==0.3
Installing v0.3 From Source
---------------------------
::
curl https://github.com/axialmarket/betterconfig/archive/version_0.3.tar.gz | tar vzxf -
cd betterconfig
sudo python setup.py install
Running Tests
=============
The betterconfig tests require py.test, which can be installed via pip.
::
sudo pip install pytest==2.5.2
py.test test_betterconfig.py
Authors and Contributors
========================
| Matthew Story <matt.story@axial.net>
| Jon Rosebaugh <jon@inklesspen.com>
| Inspired By: http://stackoverflow.com/a/6209146
| Inspired By: http://stackoverflow.com/a/2819788
