How to define and select groups of values using configobj?

Question

I would like to define several groups of values where the values of a particular group are used if that group is selected.

Here's a an example to make that clearer:

[environment]
type=prod

[prod]
folder=data/
debug=False

[dev]
folder=dev_data/
debug=True

Then to use it:

print config['folder'] # prints 'data/' because config['environment']=='prod'

Is there a natural or idiomatic way to do this in configobj or otherwise?

---

Additional Info

My current thoughts are overwriting or adding to the resulting config object using some logic post parsing the config file. However, this feels contrary to the nature of a config file, and feels like it would require somewhat complex logic to validate.

Answer 1

I know this is maybe not exactly what you're searching for, but have you considered using json for easy nested access?

For example, if your config file looks like

{
    "environment": {
        "type": "prod"
    },
    "[dev]": {
        "debug": "True",
        "folder": "dev_data/"
    },
    "[prod]": {
        "debug": "False",
        "folder": "data/"
    }
}

you can access it with [dev] or [prod] key to get your folder:

>>> config = json.loads(config_data)
>>> config['[dev]']['folder']
'dev_data/'
>>> config['[prod]']['folder']
'data/'