List from configparser passing as argument to telethon errors

Question

I got a little problem that make stuck me at code small script that collect data from telegram chats. For first i will show my code and config file:

Config.ini:

[account]
api_id = xxxx
api_hash = xxxx

[parser]
channels_to_parse = [-xxxx,-xxxx]

Run.py

import configparser

import asyncio
import time
from telethon import events
from telethon import TelegramClient
from telethon.tl import functions, types
from datetime import datetime


#load config file
config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read('config.ini', encoding="utf-8")

#telethon init
client = TelegramClient('sess', config.get("account", 'api_id'), config.get("account", 'api_hash'))
client.start()

#main cycle
@client.on(events.NewMessage(chats=config.get('parser' , 'channels_to_parse')))
async def main(event):
    #some code...
            
client.run_until_disconnected()

The main problem goes from string that contains arguments for telethon that points chats IDs from which i collecting data:

ValueError: Cannot find any entity corresponding to "[-xxxx]"

When i passing arguments manually, without configparser:

@client.on(events.NewMessage(chats = [-xxxx, -xxxx]))

Everything works well. So i think that issue related to configparser or configparser parameters. I checked configparser docs and didn't find anything that can help me.

I already tried to use channels name instead IDs. Maybe who's can explain me what i do wrong.

Answer 1

I can't check this at the moment, but I have an idea that configparser returns the str type and you need a list. But I could be wrong(

UPDATE

I checked it out and I was right!

config.ini:

[parser]
channels_to_parse = -xxxx -xxxx

file.py:

parser = config.get('parser', 'channels_to_parse') # type str
chats = [int(i) for i in parser.split()] # type list
@client.on(events.NewMessage(chats=chats))