usersettings

Portable Local Settings Storage for Python

• Automatic storage of settings information in a simple flat text file (ConfigParser format)

• Automatically stored in an OS-appropriate location (via appdirs). For example, with the chosen app identifier com.example.apps.demo:

  OS	Settings File Location
  macOS	~/Library/Application Support/com.example.apps.demo/settings.cfg
  GNU/Linux	~/.config/com.example.apps.demo/settings.cfg
  Windows	C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\com.example.apps.demo\com.example.apps.demo\settings.cfg

• Interface modeled on the argparse module.

Installation

To install this package, run: pip install usersettings

You can also download builds of usersettings on the Python Package Index.

Example:

The following example code shows the entire interface. This program will change its output each time it is run.

#!/usr/bin/python
""" test usersettings """
import time
import usersettings

# Identify for your app
s = usersettings.Settings("com.example.apps.demo")

# specify what settings you have
s.add_setting("counter", int, default=0)
s.add_setting("animal", str, default="turtles")
s.add_setting("runtimes", list, [])

# load any previously-saved values for those
s.load_settings()

# use those values
s.counter += 1
if s.counter > 2:
    # Tired of turtles?
    s.animal = "the Rabbit of Caerbannog"
s.runtimes.append(time.time())

# save your changes
s.save_settings()

print(
    (
        "I've run {0.counter} time(s). "
        "I like {0.animal}! "
        "I've been launched at these times: {0.runtimes!s}"
    ).format(s)
)

Running this demo on a mac:

$ python examples/demo.py 
I've run 1 time(s). I like turtles! I've been launched at these times: [1607277627.5897138]

$ python examples/demo.py 
I've run 2 time(s). I like turtles! I've been launched at these times: [1607277627.5897138, 1607277630.170041]

$ python examples/demo.py 
I've run 3 time(s). I like the Rabbit of Caerbannog! I've been launched at these times: [1607277627.5897138, 1607277630.170041, 1607277631.320534]

$ cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.example.apps.demo/settings.cfg 
[settings]
counter = 3
animal = the Rabbit of Caerbannog
runtimes = [1607277627.5897138, 1607277630.170041, 1607277631.320534]

License

This module is licensed under a BSD-style licence. See LICENSE.txt for details.

Notes

• Uses the appdirs module from pypi.
• Created after asking this question on stack overflow
• usersettings not your cup of tea? Have a look at configmgr, an earlier project which also leverages appdirs