Properties file in python (similar to Java Properties)

Question

Given the following format (.properties or .ini):

propertyName1=propertyValue1
propertyName2=propertyValue2
...
propertyNam         


        

Answer 1

If you need to read all values from a section in properties file in a simple manner:

Your config.properties file layout :

[SECTION_NAME]  
key1 = value1  
key2 = value2  

You code:

   import configparser

   config = configparser.RawConfigParser()
   config.read('path_to_config.properties file')

   details_dict = dict(config.items('SECTION_NAME'))

This will give you a dictionary where keys are same as in config file and their corresponding values.

details_dict is :

{'key1':'value1', 'key2':'value2'}

Now to get key1's value : details_dict['key1']

Putting it all in a method which reads that section from config file only once(the first time the method is called during a program run).

def get_config_dict():
    if not hasattr(get_config_dict, 'config_dict'):
        get_config_dict.config_dict = dict(config.items('SECTION_NAME'))
    return get_config_dict.config_dict

Now call the above function and get the required key's value :

config_details = get_config_dict()
key_1_value = config_details['key1'] 

-------------------------------------------------------------

Extending the approach mentioned above, reading section by section automatically and then accessing by section name followed by key name.

def get_config_section():
    if not hasattr(get_config_section, 'section_dict'):
        get_config_section.section_dict = dict()

        for section in config.sections():
            get_config_section.section_dict[section] = 
                             dict(config.items(section))

    return get_config_section.section_dict

To access:

config_dict = get_config_section()

port = config_dict['DB']['port'] 

(here 'DB' is a section name in config file and 'port' is a key under section 'DB'.)

Answer 2

I know that this is a very old question, but I need it just now and I decided to implement my own solution, a pure python solution, that covers most uses cases (not all):

def load_properties(filepath, sep='=', comment_char='#'):
    """
    Read the file passed as parameter as a properties file.
    """
    props = {}
    with open(filepath, "rt") as f:
        for line in f:
            l = line.strip()
            if l and not l.startswith(comment_char):
                key_value = l.split(sep)
                key = key_value[0].strip()
                value = sep.join(key_value[1:]).strip().strip('"') 
                props[key] = value 
    return props

You can change the sep to ':' to parse files with format:

key : value

The code parses correctly lines like:

url = "http://my-host.com"
name = Paul = Pablo
# This comment line will be ignored

You'll get a dict with:

{"url": "http://my-host.com", "name": "Paul = Pablo" }

Answer 3

I followed configparser approach and it worked quite well for me. Created one PropertyReader file and used config parser there to ready property to corresponding to each section.

**Used Python 2.7

Content of PropertyReader.py file:

#!/usr/bin/python
import ConfigParser

class PropertyReader:

def readProperty(self, strSection, strKey):
    config = ConfigParser.RawConfigParser()
    config.read('ConfigFile.properties')
    strValue = config.get(strSection,strKey);
    print "Value captured for "+strKey+" :"+strValue
    return strValue

Content of read schema file:

from PropertyReader import *

class ReadSchema:

print PropertyReader().readProperty('source1_section','source_name1')
print PropertyReader().readProperty('source2_section','sn2_sc1_tb')

Content of .properties file:

[source1_section]
source_name1:module1
sn1_schema:schema1,schema2,schema3
sn1_sc1_tb:employee,department,location
sn1_sc2_tb:student,college,country

[source2_section]
source_name1:module2
sn2_schema:schema4,schema5,schema6
sn2_sc1_tb:employee,department,location
sn2_sc2_tb:student,college,country

Answer 4

For .ini files there is the ConfigParser module that provides a format compatible with .ini files.

Anyway there's nothing available for parsing complete .properties files, when I have to do that I simply use jython (I'm talking about scripting).

Answer 5

this works for me.

from pyjavaproperties import Properties
p = Properties()
p.load(open('test.properties'))
p.list()
print p
print p.items()
print p['name3']

Answer 6

Below 2 lines of code shows how to use Python List Comprehension to load 'java style' property file.

split_properties=[line.split("=") for line in open('/<path_to_property_file>)]
properties={key: value for key,value in split_properties }

Please have a look at below post for details https://ilearnonlinesite.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/reading-property-file-in-python-using-comprehension-and-generators/