Python configparser: Copy comments from input file

Question

I'm using configparser and Python 3.3 to create a script which makes some small modifications to config files. These config files often contain commented-out lines, like so:

[Section]
Value1=Foo
;Very important comment
;Another very important comment
Value2=Bar

Understandably, Python strips these out when it writes the new version of the config file, but that's something of a problem. Is there any way to copy the comments into the new config file? (Unfortunately, order is also important. Thanks to the OrderedDict, the order of config options is maintained properly, but the order of comments will need to be maintained as well, which hopefully will not be an issue.)

Thanks!

You might want to have a look at the [cfgparse](http://cfgparse.sourceforge.net/) module. — jazzpi, Nov 19 '13 at 14:55

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 19 '13 at 15:04

0

Here is a simple trick/workaround: Instead of a comment, put REM_x= in front to turn the comment into an option (which your code will ignore):

[Section]
Value1=Foo
REM_1=Very important comment
REM_2=Another very important comment
REM_Value2=Bar
Value2=Baz

answered Nov 19 '13 at 15:04

Aaron Digulla

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So what I need to do is replace all the `;` characters and then change them back later? Also, why did you add `REM_` to `Value2` in your answer? – John Allie Nov 19 '13 at 15:17
Changing the `;` characters would work but why bother? Create the config with comments as config options and leave them that way. The last example was to demonstrate how you can comment out normal options. – Aaron Digulla Nov 19 '13 at 16:12
The issue is that I didn't create these files, I need to alter files which already exist. – John Allie Nov 19 '13 at 16:35
Ah. In that case, replacing the `;` with `REM_` + a number + `=` should work in many cases (it'll fail for `key=value # comment`) – Aaron Digulla Nov 19 '13 at 16:48
What's the best way to remove the `REM_`s later? – John Allie Nov 19 '13 at 19:02
Read the whole file as a string and do the usual search&replace. – Aaron Digulla Nov 20 '13 at 09:32

Python configparser: Copy comments from input file

1 Answers1