CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7configurationconfiguration-filesconfigparser
Arij SEDIRI
Arij SEDIRI

Reputation: 2158

MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers.(configparser)

I'm using configparser in order to read and modify automatically a file conf named 'streamer.conf'. I'm doing this :

import configparser

config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read('C:/Users/../Desktop/streamer.conf')

And then it breaks apart with this Error message :

MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers.
file: 'C:/Users/../Desktop/streamer.conf', line: 1
u'input{\n'

What might be wrong? Any help appreciated.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 31151

Answers (5)

Pierz
Pierz

Reputation: 8118

As mentioned in other answers the config file needs to be INI format, but the actual error you're seeing is due to the fact that the requested config file is missing any section headers (as mentioned in the error message) - these are names enclosed in square brackets which provide a header for a section of the INI file. The default header is [DEFAULT] e.g.

[DEFAULT]
 config_item1='something'
 config_item2=2

Upvotes: 4

Vladimir
Vladimir

Reputation: 6726

just specify right encoding

config.read(config_file_path, encoding='utf-8-sig')
  • "utf-8-sig" for UTF-8 with BOM
  • "utf-8" for UTF-8 without BOM

Upvotes: 6

KunMing Xie
KunMing Xie

Reputation: 1667

ConfigParser parse UTF-8 file with BOM(xef xbb xbf)

    u = open("setting.ini").read().decode("utf-8-sig").encode("utf-8")
    fp = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
    fp.write(u)
    fp.seek(0)

    conf = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
    conf.readfp(fp)

Upvotes: 1

Ryan H.
Ryan H.

Reputation: 7844

I got the same error message when I created a pip.conf file. In my case, I had inadvertently created a UTF-8 file with BOM (byte-order marker) instead of a plain UTF-8 file (with no BOM).

So, check to make sure you have a plain text file. If you're not sure, you can open the file in a hex editor and check the first byte(s).

Upvotes: 1

J Earls
J Earls

Reputation: 1812

You didn't include streamer.conf, but from the error message, it's not in the right format. configparser is used for parsing "INI" files:

[section1]
setting1 = value
setting2 = value

[section2]
setting3 = value
setting1 = value

etc.

Upvotes: 0

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