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bpo-37779 : Add information about the overriding behavior of ConfigParser.read #15177

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Merged
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Sep 23, 2020
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bpo-37779 : Add information about the overriding behavior of ConfigParser.read #15177

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3ff9d28
Add information about the overriding behavior of ConfigParser.read me…
sblondon Aug 8, 2019
b3ea855
Update Doc/library/configparser.rst
sblondon Aug 9, 2019
73ea042
aesthetic: add another line before a paragraph, remove trailing space…
sblondon Aug 9, 2019
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Fix formatting errors (line length and empty lines)
sblondon Aug 9, 2019
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Parameter function are stylized in italic
sblondon Aug 11, 2019
8d9a084
Update Doc/library/configparser.rst
sblondon Sep 12, 2019
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Wording improvement
sblondon Sep 12, 2019
196d4f8
rename a variable to fix a doctest
sblondon Sep 18, 2020
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22 changes: 22 additions & 0 deletions Doc/library/configparser.rst
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Expand Up @@ -135,6 +135,28 @@ involves the ``DEFAULT`` section which provides default values for all other
sections [1]_. Note also that keys in sections are
case-insensitive and stored in lowercase [1]_.

If it is necessary to read several configurations, with each one having more
priority than the previous one, an instance of :class:`ConfigParser` can be
used to override previously defined properties and retain existing ones.
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One problem I see with this is that the first few clauses of this sentence seem to be introducing a tutorial, i.e. "If you want to do X, you can achieve it with Y", but then it turns out that you are actually describing the existing behavior of ConfigParser rather than providing a recipe or something.

I would recommend rewriting this as an introduction to the properties of a ConfigParser, like so:

It is also possible to read several configurations into a single :class:`ConfigParser` object, in which case the most recent configuration has priority over the previous ones; conflicting keys will be taken from the new configuration and existing keys will be retained.

That's mostly an example, I'm not super happy with that particular wording...

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@aeros aeros Sep 11, 2019 •
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@pganssle:

That's mostly an example, I'm not super happy with that particular wording...

What do you think of this wording?

It is possible to read several configurations into a single :class:ConfigParser, where the most recently added configuration has the highest priority. Any conflicting keys are taken from the more recent configuration while the previously existing keys are retained.

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:shipit: That looks great!

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@pganssle I pushed @aeros167 's version to the repository.

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I have made the requested changes; please review again


.. doctest::

>>> config = configparser.ConfigParser()
>>> config.read('example.ini')
['example.ini']
>>> config['topsecret.server.com']['Port']
'50022'
>>> config.read_string("[topsecret.server.com]\nPort=48484")
>>> config['topsecret.server.com']['Port']
'48484'
>>> config.read_dict({"topsecret.server.com": {"Port": 21212}})
>>> config['topsecret.server.com']['Port']
'21212'
>>> config['topsecret.server.com']['ForwardX11']
'no'


This behaviour is equivalent to a :meth:`ConfigParser.read` call with several files passed to ``filenames`` parameter.

Supported Datatypes
-------------------
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