Need help parsing config data

Question

I have this following piece of code:

all_messages = {}
num = None
index = None
begin_message = lambda x: re.match(r'^([0-9]+)\: (.+)', x)
with open(filename) as f:
    messages = {}
    message = []
    for line in f:
        m = re.match(r'^\[(.+)\]$', line)
        if m:
            if index:
                messages.update({num: '\n'.join(message)})
                num = None
                all_messages.update({index: messages}) 
            index = m.group(1)
            print index
        elif begin_message(line):
            if num:
                messages.update({num: '\n'.join(message)})
            del message[:]
            num = int(begin_message(line).group(1))
            begin = begin_message(line).group(2).strip()
            if begin:
                message.append(begin)
        else:
            cont = line.strip()
            if cont:
                if num:
                    message.append(cont)
    else:
        end = line.strip()
        if end:
            if num:
                messages.update({num: '\n'.join(message)})
        all_messages.update({index: messages})
print all_messages

I'm trying to parse out a config file similar to this:

[Message 1]
1: Hello
2: Hi
3: Blah
   Hah

[Message 2]
1: Hi
2: How's it going?
3: Great.
4: Yep

I grab the index for the content and then each message, everything works except when I try to update the dictionary it seems to replace the beginning message with the message that follows after.

For example I am expecting a dictionary as such:

{ "Message 1":
  { 1: "Hello", 
    2: "Hi",
    3: "Blah\nHah" 
  },
  "Message 2":
  { 1: "Hi",
    2: "How's it going",
    3: "Great.",
    4: "Yep"
  }
}

But I end up with:

{ "Message 1":
  { 1: "Hi",
    2: "How's it going",
    3: "Great.",
    4: "Yep"
  },
  "Message 2":
  { 1: "Hi",
    2: "How's it going",
    3: "Great.",
    4: "Yep"
  }
}

Thanks for any help

Have you tried using the configparser library?

Spencer Rathbun
– Spencer Rathbun

2012-01-10 15:02:04 +00:00
Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 15:02 — Spencer Rathbun
– Spencer Rathbun, Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 15:02

johnsyweb · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-10 15:10:10Z

3

You are re-implementing Python's ConfigParser module and I advise you to stop.

>>> import ConfigParser
>>> config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
>>> config.read('8805198.cfg')
['8805198.cfg']
>>> d = dict((section, dict(config.items(section))) for section in config.sections())
>>> print d
{'Message 1': {'1': 'Hello', '3': 'Blah\nHah', '2': 'Hi'}, 'Message 2': {'1': 'Hi', '3': 'Great.', '2': "How's it going?", '4': 'Yep'}}
>>> print d['Message 1']
{'1': 'Hello', '3': 'Blah\nHah', '2': 'Hi'}
>>> print d['Message 1']['3']
Blah
Hah

edited Jan 10, 2012 at 15:10

answered Jan 10, 2012 at 15:04

johnsyweb

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Comments

Chris · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-10 15:01:11Z

2

I'm not sure what is wrong with the code you posted, but rather than writing your own configuration file parser, you could use ConfigParser, which is part of the standard library. See the very end of the documentation page for an example using ConfigParser.

answered Jan 10, 2012 at 15:01

Chris

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5 Comments

mikeyy Over a year ago

The ConfigParser doesn't allow me to do what I am aiming for, but thanks for the suggestion.

johnsyweb Over a year ago

@mikeyy: What doesn't ConfigParser do that you need?

mikeyy Over a year ago

@Johnysweb Thanks to your code I stand corrected, it is fully capable of doing what I want. Excuse my ignorance.

Chris Over a year ago

@mikeyy ConfigParser is very flexible, see the first example on the documentation page: this summarises a number of features. For example, = are : are both used as key-value separators and that ConfigParser supports interpolataion, i.e. values can contain format strings to other values (in the same section). The later point would be time consuming to do yourself.

mikeyy Over a year ago

@Chris You are right. I am implementing ConfigParser at the moment.

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