Upgrading the Configuration

Currently merging new config options to existing deployments must be done by hand. This should be possible automatically.

Requirements

• Merge current settings with new default config into new config
• Preserve comments

ConfigParser

Python's built-in ConfigParser does not support preserving comments.

ConfigObj

​ConfigObj documentation ​ConfigObj on PyPI

• INI style config files, ​example
• Used by bazaar, chandler, matplotlib, ipython, elisa

Config

​Config documentation

• Not sure if merge function supports preserving comments

JSON or XML

• Advantage is that these are well-known formats, and both are readable from Python.
• For comments, allow a "comment" field.

Further alternatives

Further alternatives are covered by the ​ConfigParser Shootout (circa 2004-2006)