Python ConfigParser: A Comprehensive Guide ⚙️

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Nerd For Tech

4 min readAug 10, 2023

Mastering Configuration Management in Python: A Deep Dive into the Configparser Module

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Hello Jawans, 😎, today we will be learning about config files, and conifParser. Howzzzzz the Joshhhhhhhh …???… ⭐🤩🔥

1. What is a ConfigParser?

While coding we have multiple lines of code or variables holding different configuration values related to the application. The configuration variables can be related to either test or production environments or both. Since most of the configuration values are static so instead of hardcoding values in the code, we can make it more flexible by creating a config file where all configurations are stored and can be read and edited without disturbing the application’s code.

ConfigParser is a Python module that is used to create and read the configuration files and use them in the application development.

2. How to create a Config File?

Config files are files with .ini extensions. The contents are organized as sections and items. Sections are like headings and items are the ones that actually store the config values in a key-value pair format.

Let’s assume that we are connecting to a remote server, and we need to store config values such as host, port, username, password, etc. Since there can be multiple servers that the applications connect to in such cases, we can separate each server’s config data using different sections in the config file.

[SFTP_SERVER1]      # <------------------ Section
host = 10.120.98.12 # <------------------ Items (key-value)
port = 22
username = tester
password = password


[SFTP_SERVER2]      # <------------------ Section
host = 10.120.98.12 # <------------------ Items (key-value)
port = 23
username = tester
password = password

So SFTP_SERVER1 and SFTP_SERVER2 are sections and host, port, username, password are keys with their respective values.

To learn about how to connect to SFTP Servers, how to transfers file and run remote command read this article: link
Paramiko- How to transfer files with Remote System (SFTP Servers) using Python | by KIHSA Rai | Aug, 2023 | Medium

Section name must be unique.

3. How to Read Config Files

First, create a ConfigParser object.

import configparser

configParser= configparser.ConfigParser() # Creating a configParser object

Read the config file. The filename used in the code is tempConfig.ini

filename= "tempConfig.ini"
configParser.read(filename)    # Reading the config file

Use ApIs to list all defined sections in the config file.

Servers= configParser.sections()    # Getting sections from config file
print (Servers)                     # Printing the Sections (Servers)

Printing the sections defined in config file

Use ApIs to read item defined under the sections.

Servers= configParser.sections()    # Getting sections from config file
host= configParser[Servers[0]]['host']  # Getting item using the key host
port= configParser[Servers[0]]['port']  # Getting item using the key port

print(f"Host: {host} port: {port}")

Printing the item defined under Section: SFTP_SERVER1

Combined Code

Here I have created a class (HostConfig) for reading a config file and also provided some API’s to read the sections and items defined in the config file.

import configparser

class HostConfig:
    def __init__(self, configFile):
        self.configFile= configFile
        self.config= configparser.ConfigParser()
        
    def readConfig(self):
        # Reading the config file
        self.config.read(self.configFile)
    
    def getServers(self):
        # Returning all the sections defined in the config file
        return self.config.sections()
    
    def getData(self, host, key):
        # Getting the values from the particular section (host) 
        # by using the key       
        return self.config[host][key]
    
    def getHostDetails(self, host):
        # Getting all the values defined under the given section (host).
        # Assuming the keys are known and fixed.
        hostdata= self.config[host]
        return hostdata['host'],hostdata['port'],hostdata['username'],hostdata['password']

hostConfig= HostConfig('tempConfig.ini')  # creating object of HostConfig
hostConfig.readConfig()                   # Reading config file 

Servers= hostConfig.getServers()       # Getting the list of sections (servers)
print("Servers: ",Servers)

print("Server 0 data: \n",hostConfig.getHostDetails(Servers[0]))  # Getting items for Section No 0

print("Server1: Host ",hostConfig.getData(Servers[1], 'host'))  # Getting item for Section No 1
print("Server1: Port ",hostConfig.getData(Servers[1], 'port'))  # Getting item for Section No 1

If you want another tutorial on how to create a Config file using Python.
If you want to learn how to convert a dictionary to a config file in Python.
please leave a comment.
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