Getting value out of ConfigParser instead of string

Question

I have a file.ini structured like so:

item1 = a,b,c
item2 = x,y,z,e
item3 = w

and my configParser is set like this:

def configMy(filename='file.ini', section='top'):
    parser = ConfigParser()
    parser.read(filename)
    mydict = {}
    if parser.has_section(section):
        params = parser.items(section)
        for param in params:
            mydict[param[0]] = param[1]
    else:
        raise Exception('Section {0} not found in the {1} file'.format(section, filename))
    return mydict

right now "mydict" is returning key-value pairs of strings, ie: {'item1': 'a,b,c', 'item2': 'x,y,e,z', 'item3':'w'}

how can I alter it to return the value as a list? like this: {'item1': [a,b,c], 'item2': [x,y,e,z], 'item3':[w]}

Answer 1

You can use split on the parsed data to split the list.

def configMy(filename='file.ini', section='top'):
    parser = ConfigParser()
    parser.read(filename)
    mydict = {}
    if parser.has_section(section):
        params = parser.items(section)
        for param in params:
            mydict[param[0]] = param[1].split(',')
    else:
        raise Exception('Section {0} not found in the {1} file'.format(section, filename))
    return mydict

If needed, you could then add some more logic to convert back to a single value if the list only has a single value. Or check for commas in the value before splitting.