yaconfig

Python package to assist configuration of Python software.

Installation

To install the latest release:

pip3 install yaconfig

Usage

This package is intended to be used by other package to assist their configuration. The recommended workflow follows:

• Add a config module. Its purpose should be to define the configuration variables (the metaconfig) and to provide a single instance of the actual configuration (the values) for your application. If you want to implement a more complex logic to handle multiple configuration, you can do it here. Simple example:

"""File config.py"""
import yaconfig

metaconfig = yaconfig.MetaConfig(
    yaconfig.Variable("text", type=str, default="Hello world", help="Text to output")
)


# Get a default configuration, which should be overridden when the execution starts
config = yaconfig.Config(metaconfig)

• In the entry point of your program, load the previous module and initialize the config using the desired method. The variables can be accessed from now on. Example:

"""File main.py"""
from config import config  # Just need the config object of the previous module
# Use a relative import instead if intended to run as a package
# from .config import config

try:
    config.load_json("config.json")
except FileNotFoundError:
    print("config.json file not found. Using the default configuration instead.")

print(config["text"])

Note that if that file can be loaded as a module, you should avoid initializing the config. You can use __main__ or build a launching script to prevent this.

• To document the configuration, you can use the methods of the metaconfig variable you have defined. This can be done manually from the interpreter or automated by writing a script. Some examples follow:

from config import metaconfig # Or wherever the config was placed

metaconfig.generate_json_example()  # Generate a config.example.json file
metaconfig.generate_environment_example()  # Generate a environment.example.sh file
metaconfig.interactive_json()  # Prompt the user to generate a config.json file
metaconfig.interactive_environment()  # Prompt the user to generate a environment.sh file