Description:

Configuration files (or config files) are files used to configure the parameters and initial settings for certain 

computer programs. They are used for user applications, server processes and operating system settings.

A configuration file consists of sections, led by a [section] header and followed by name:value entries
(name=value is also accepted). They may include comments, prefixed by specific characters (# and ;).

Implementation:

class ConfigReader(): def __init__(self): self.fileData = dict() def readFile(self,configFile): fileContents = None #check if the file exists try: ConfigFile = open(configFile, "r") fileContents = ConfigFile.readlines() ConfigFile.close() except FileNotFoundError: print("Input file not found.") return #loop through each line in file for line in fileContents: #check for comment line if line[0]=='#' or line[0]==';': continue #check for new section elif line[0]=='[': index = line.index(']') section = line[1:index] self.fileData[section] = dict() else: #read name:value pair if '=' in line: name, value = line.split('=') elif ':' in line: name, value = line.split(':') #add content to current section self.fileData[section][name.strip()] = value.strip() def displayFile(self): file = self.fileData for section in file: print(str(section) + ' :') for option in file[section]: print(str(option) + ' = ' + file[section][option]) print() def main(): #create an object of class ConfigReader configFileReader = ConfigReader() #read file name from user #fileName = input("Enter the file name:") fileName = 'example.ini' #invoke the readFile method configFileReader.readFile(fileName) #display the file contents configFileReader.displayFile() if __name__ == "__main__": main()