Writing comments to files with ConfigParser

Question

How can one write comments to a given file within sections?

If I have:

import ConfigParser
with open('./config.ini', 'w') as f:
    conf = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
    conf.set('DEFAULT', 'test', 1)
    conf.write(f)

I will get the file:

[DEFAULT]
test = 1

But how can I get a file with comments inside [DEFAULT] section, like:

[DEFAULT]
; test comment
test = 1

I know I can write codes to files by doing:

import ConfigParser
with open('./config.ini', 'w') as f:
    conf = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
    conf.set('DEFAULT', 'test', 1)
    conf.write(f)
    f.write('; test comment') # but this gets printed after the section key-value pairs

Is this a possibility with ConfigParser? And I don't want to try another module because I need to keep my program as "stock" as possible.

Answer 1

You can use the allow_no_value option if you have Version >= 2.7

This snippet:

import ConfigParser  config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser(allow_no_value=True) config.add_section('default_settings') config.set('default_settings', '; comment here') config.set('default_settings', 'test', 1) with open('config.ini', 'w') as fp:     config.write(fp)   config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser(allow_no_value=True) config.read('config.ini') print config.items('default_settings') 

will create an ini file like this:

[default_settings] ; comment here test = 1 

Answer 2

Update for 3.7

I've been dealing with configparser lately and came across this post. Figured I'd update it with information relevant to 3.7.

Example 1:

config = configparser.ConfigParser(allow_no_value=True)
config.set('SECTION', '; This is a comment.', None)

Example 2:

config = configparser.ConfigParser(allow_no_value=True)
config['SECTION'] = {'; This is a comment':None, 'Option':'Value')

Example 3: If you want to keep your letter case unchanged (default is to convert all option:value pairs to lowercase)

config = configparser.ConfigParser(allow_no_value=True)
config.optionxform = str
config.set('SECTION', '; This Comment Will Keep Its Original Case', None)

Where "SECTION" is the case-sensitive section name you want the comment added to. Using "None" (no quotes) instead of an empty string ('') will allow you to set the comment without leaving a trailing "=".