Dict4Ini

''This module is used to process ini format configuration file. It acts just like a dict, but you can also access it's sections and options with attribute syntax, just like x.test.''

Why reinvent this module?

I used Config4Obj module for GoogleTalkBot software (confbot) to deal with configuration file. But I found its lacks on:

• Only can access options as x['name']['o'], but not as x.name.o
• You must create section first, then you can access its options. So if you didn't create x['name']={} section, so you cann't do x['name']['o'] = 3
• The option's data can be saved as string format, but as read out again, Config4Obj cann't convert it to their original value type, so you must conver it yourself. I didn't tried validate module ships with Config4Obj.
• Didn't support unicode

'''Above is only my opinions, so they may be not right. '''

So I decide to ''reinvent'' a new module to solve these lacks, I named it as Dict4Ini, it means you can access the config object just like a dict.

What's it features

• as simple as others
• you can access options according to dict syntax, just like x['name']['o'] = 1, x['name'].keys(), x['name'].values(), etc.
• you also can access options according to attr syntax, just like x.name.o = 1, x.name.keys(), x.name.values(), etc. So the name must be Identifier or single word.
• you can save comments in it(but this feature is not tested so much)
• support multi level section, subsection name will just like: [firsub/secsub]
• can save config items order
• support multi data types: string, unicode, int, float, list/tuple, dict, etc, you can save them to or regain them from config file
• can convert to dict '''new'''
• auto detect BOM of utf-8 file '''new'''
• can encrypt or encode in base64 specified sections
• It's a little module, just for my mind, so if you like, you could try it, but if you don't like, just skip it, that's ok

About license

• BSD

What's new?

• 2011/01/18 Version 0.9.7
• Fix #8 bug.
• 2009/11/02 Version 0.9.6
• Add update method.
• 2008/03/14 Version 0.9.5
• Fix init.py bug, and you can import dict4ini from dict4ini package
• 2008/02/16 Version 0.9.4.1
• Fix comment process, if you comment with node._comment, then if the comment does not begin with '#'(commentdelimeter), it'll automatically add it.
• 2007/09/22 Version 0.9.3
• Improve the comment process
• Improve empty section process
• Add normal format support, so each value should be treated string type
• 2007/09/19 Version 0.9.2.5
• Save boolean value to 0 or 1
• Add iterator support, and you can use for i in ini to iterator (key,value) now
• Add 'in' test support, so you can test if a key is in a ini via key in ini, it's the same with ini.has_key(key)
• 2007/09/17 Version 0.9.2.4
• Fix the end string is \" bug
• 2007/08/08 Version 0.9.2.3
• Fix sub section bug, for secretSection argument, dict4ini will encrypt all subsections of a secretSection, for example, secretSection=['a', 'c'], then all subsections of 'a' and 'c' will be encrypted.
• Add missing init.py file.
• 2007/07/09 Version 0.9.2.1 thanks to Mayowa Akinyemi
• Add the ability to protect specific sections. When use with the secretKey or hideData only section names listed in the secretSections parameter will be encrypted
• 2007/07/03 Version 0.9.2
• Add clear method
• Added encryption code thanks to Mayowa Akinyemi. Using the secretKey parameter will encrypt the values using Paul Rubin's p3.py encryption module. Using the hideData parameter will perform base64 enc/dec of the values
• 2007/06/26 Version 0.9.1
• Fix float convert bug
• 2007/06/13 Version 0.9
• Thanks for Victor Stinner giving a output format patch, so you can define your own output format "%s = %s" to anything you want, for example "%s=%s" or "%s:%s". And Dict4Ini will auto remove '%s' from the fromat string, and the strip() the rest of the string, then use it to split the key and value in Ini file. For example, if you using "%s:%s", Dict4Ini will get "%s:%s".replace('%s', '').strip(), then use ':' to split the line.
• 2007/04/20 Version 0.8
• Add exception process when parsing file
• Add BOM detect
• 2007/04/19 Version 0.7
• Fix '\' escape
• 2006/03/21 Version 0.6
• Fix ordereditems bug.
• 2006/01/04 Version 0.5
• 2006/01/04
• Add ordereditems() method, so you can get the items according the ini file definition
• 2005/12/30
• Support onelevel parameter, you can set it True, than only one level can be used, so that the key can include section delimeter char in it.
• Support sectiondelimeter parmeter, you can set the section delimeter to which you want
• 2005/12/12 Version 0.4
• Fixed a bug about "\" in option's value, thanks to Andreas Kaiser
• 2005/12/09 Version 0.3
• Adding dict() method, then you can change the DictIni object to dict type, so you can really use it as a dict alternative
• 2005/10/16 Version 0.2
• Saving config items order
• Support float format

Examples

Example 1 Create a ini file

    import dict4ini

    x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini')
    x.common.name = 'limodou'
    x.common.bool = 1
    x.common.list = [3, 1.2, 'Hello', 'have spaces']
    x.save()

This example will save option to test.ini. As you can see, you needn't create section "common" at first, just think it's there, it's ok. The result of test.ini is:

[common]
list = 3,1.2,Hello,"have spaces",
bool = 1
name = limodou

And you can see, once the value has special chars, just like ' ', ',', '\"', etc, the string will be quoted by double quoter. But "Hello" is a single word, and it has not the special chars, so it won't be quoted. If the value is number, it'll be just like number literal, but if the value is number string, it'll be quoted by double quoter.

In this time, the Dict4Ini support int, float, list/tuple, string, unicode data type, for others you should convert yourself.

Example 2 Open an existed ini file

    import dict4ini

    x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini')
    print x.common.bool
    print x.common.list
    print x.common.name

So it's easy. The result will be:

1
[3, 1.2, 'Hello', 'have spaces']
limodou

The data is auto converted to its original type.

Example 3 Dealing default values

Many times, you may want to set default values of options, once it is not set in configuration file. Using Dict4Ini, you have many ways to do that:

Using dict's setdefault() method

x = dict4ini.DictIni()
x.test.setdefault('a', 'b')
print x.test.a

Passing a dict to DictIni init method

d = {'test':{'a':'b'}}
x = dict4ini.DictIni(values=d)
print x.test.a

Creating config object first, then assign a dict value

x = dict4ini.DictIni()
d = {'a':'b'}
x.test = d
print x.test.a

Example 4 Saving comments in ini file

    import dict4ini
    x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini')

    x.common._comment = 'This is a comment test.\nThis is the second line.'
    x.common.name = 'limodou'
    x.common.comment('name', 'Input your name')
    x.common.bool = 1
    x.common.comment('bool', 'Boot type')
    x.common.list = ['3', 'Hello', 'have spaces']
    x.common.comment('list', 'list testing')
    x.save()

You can save comments in configuration also. Adding comments to section, you should using x.section._comment = 'comments'. Comments could be multi lines. Or you could use more commonly method, x.comment(). Just like x.comment('common', 'comments'). Add comments to options, you can only using comment() method, just like x.common.comment('list', 'comments').

The result of the ini file will be:

# This is a comment test.
# This is the second line.
[common]
# Boot type
bool = 1
# list testing
list = "3",Hello,"have spaces",
# Input your name
name = limodou

Example 5 Using unicode in ini file

Using default encoding

#coding=utf-8
import dict4ini
x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini')
x.common.name = u'中文名'
x.save()

Note: You should specify the coding used in the .py file. In this case is utf-8. Then I assign x.common.name with a unicode string. If you don't specify the encoding in create instance of the DictIni, the Dict4Ini will auto find the default encoding in the system in turns of:

 * local.getdefaultlocale()[1]
 * sys.getfilesystemencoding()
 * utf-8
 * The BOM of the file

The result of the ini file will be:

[common]
name = u"中文名"

You should notice the file encoding will be utf-8, and the name's value is like python unicode syntax. For easiness, it doesn't support using unicode in comments.

Specifying encoding name

You can also specify the encoding of ini file, just like:

#coding=utf-8
import dict4ini
x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini', encoding='gbk')
x.common.name = u'中文名'
x.save()

It's easy to set an encoding of ini file.

Example 6 Using multi section

import dict4ini
x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini')
x.common.settings.a = 1
x.common.settings.b = ["3", "hello"]
x.special.name = 'limodou'
x.special.homepage = 'http://www.donews.net/limodou'
x.save()

You don't need to care if subsection is created, you need to just use it.

The result of the ini file will be:

    [common/settings]
    a = 1
    b = "3",hello,


    [special]
    homepage = http://www.donews.net/limodou
    name = limodou

Example 7 Getting ordered options

Sometimes we need to keep the order or the options according to the ini file, so how to get the ordered items?

ini = dict4ini.DictIni('x.ini')
for key, value in ini.ordereditems(ini):
   print key, value

This example is dealing with the first level section.

ini = dict4ini.DictIni('x.ini')
for key, value in ini.ordereditems(ini.autostring):
   print key, value

This example is dealing with certain section.

Example 8 Encrypt options

You can also encrypt some specified sections if you need. The Dict4Ini ships with a p3.py module, which can be used to encrypt/decrypt.

import dict4ini

d = dict4ini.DictIni('tt.ini', secretKey='limodou', secretSections='a')
d.a.name = 'limodou'
d.save()

And the result will be

[a]
name = v1ToGlTNo+YoB0VF5wk1Ea1XnRIVIv7xNNKOXSTdeA==

Here the parameter secretSections can be a string list or a string with ',' delimeter, for example: 'a,b' will be treated as ['a', 'b']. You should know all subsections of a specified section will be encrypted.

Example 8 Hide data with base64 encoding

The code is:

import dict4ini

d = dict4ini.DictIni('tt.ini', hideData=True)
d.a.name = 'limodou'
d.save()

And the result is:

[a]
name = bGltb2RvdQ==

Examples waiting

FAQ

1. Can I delete an option?

A: Yes. For example:

import dict4ini
x = dict4ini.DictIni('test.ini')
del x.a
x.save()

2. How to use 'xxx.xxx' style option key?

A: Easy. Just using dict syntax, for example:

x['common']['xxx.xxx'] = 'a'

or

x.common['xxx.xxx'] = 'a'

3. How to deal the key including section delimeter char, just like '/'

A: As you creating the DictIni instance, you can specify a "onelevel=True" parameter:

x = dict4ini.DictIni('inifile', onelevel=True)

But it'll not support multi section again. So you can also defined another sectiondelimeter char different from '/', just like:

x = dict4ini.DictIni('inifile', sectiondelimeter='@')

But every time you called dict4ini.DictIni() you may need including sectiondelimeter parameter.

4. Can Dict4Ini process the simple ini format

A: Yes, it can. You can just simple pass a normal parameter to DictIni class. And all value will be treated string type, and when you saving the ini file, the value will be converted to string type automatically, and in normal mode, only these types support: int, float, str, unicode(will be automatically encoded to specifial encoding). And it doesn't support multiple level sections. And you need update to 0.9.3+.