Introducing parse_it — a Python configuration parser

#python

No matter if you use Python for frontend, backend, big data, academics or just need a simple script to automate an annoying task you will most likely to pass a few configuration variables for said app, this can be done in many different ways:

Environment variables
Command line arguments
Configuration file(s)

Each method has it’s own pros and cons & deciding which one to use can bring up a lot of questions:

Which method should I choose to configure my app?
Should I choose just one or multiple methods to configure my app?
Which file format should I use for my configuration files?

This list can go on and on as each question will only bring more follow up question, this is why I decided to create a single “parse_it” package which can handle all of the needed work surrounding a Python project settings & configuration work, parse_it handles all of that with ease with the basic concept being that deciding how to configure the app should be left to the app end-user and not for the developer.
Installation

Installing is easy:

pip install parse_it

Using

Using parse_it is almost as easy as installing it:

# Load parse_it
from parse_it import ParseIt

# Create parse_it object.
parser = ParseIt()

Now you can read your configuration values no matter how they are configured (cli args, envvars, json/yaml/etc files)

my_setting = parser.read_configuration_variable("my_setting")

parse_it allows you to do much more then just read a variable & includes:

Multiple file format support (JSON, YAML, TOML, HCL, INI, XML)
Find the needed setting key form multiple configuration files (by default all valid file formats are read from the working directory recursively)
EnvVar support (Including configurable auto capitalization & prefix)
Command line argument support
Auto-correct data types (so your EnvVars & CLI args will return Dicts, Lists, Intgers, Boolens, etc…)
Easily configurable
Default values per setting & globally across all settings
Easily flag a setting as required so it will raise a error if missing

All of the options above (& more) can be easily configured & is described in the single page README guide at the project GitHub repo at https://github.com/naorlivne/parse_it