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pythonconstantsprojects
Jonathan Livni
Jonathan Livni

Reputation: 107092

Sharing settings\constants between Python projects

What would be a neat way to share configuration parameters\settings\constants between various projects in Python?

Using a DB seems like an overkill. Using a file raises the question of which project should host the file in its source control...

I'm open for suggestions :)

UPDATE:
For clarification - assume the various projects are deployed differently on different systems. In some cases in different directories, in other cases some of the projects are there and some are not.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2396

Answers (4)

Jonathanb
Jonathanb

Reputation: 1264

Why is a database overkill? You're describing sharing data across different projects located on different physical systems with different paths to each project's directory. Oh, and sometimes the projects just aren't there. I can't imagine a better means of communicating the data. It only has to be a single table, that's hardly overkill if it provides the consistent access you need across platforms, computers, and even networks.

Upvotes: 2

Jonathan Livni
Jonathan Livni

Reputation: 107092

Create a Python package and import it in the various projects...

Upvotes: 3

Pwnna
Pwnna

Reputation: 9538

Why don't you just have a file named constants.py and just have CONSTANT = value

Upvotes: 3

Erik Forsberg
Erik Forsberg

Reputation: 4969

I find that in many cases, using a configuration file is really worth the (minor) hassle. The builtin ConfigParser module is very handy, especially the fact that it's really easy to parse multiple files and let the module merge them together, with values in files parsed later overriding values from files parsed earlier. This allows for easy use of a global file (e.g. /etc/yoursoftware/main.ini) and a per-user file (~/.yoursoftware/main.ini).

Each of your projects would then open the config file and read values from it.

Here's a small code example:

basefile.ini:

[sect1]
value1=1
value2=2

overridingfile.ini:

[sect1]
value1=3

configread.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from ConfigParser import ConfigParser

config = ConfigParser()
config.read(["basefile.ini", "overridingfile.ini"])

print config.get("sect1", "value1")
print config.get("sect1", "value2")

Running this would print out:

3
2

Upvotes: 5

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