Where to put a configuration file in Python?
Have you seen how configuration files work? Read up on "rc" files, as they're sometimes called. "bashrc", "vimrc", etc.
There's usually a multi-step search for the configuration file.
Local directory.
./myproject.conf.User's home directory (
~user/myproject.conf)A standard system-wide directory (
/etc/myproject/myproject.conf)A place named by an environment variable (
MYPROJECT_CONF)
The Python installation would be the last place to look.
config= Nonefor loc in os.curdir, os.path.expanduser("~"), "/etc/myproject", os.environ.get("MYPROJECT_CONF"): try: with open(os.path.join(loc,"myproject.conf")) as source: config.readfp( source ) except IOError: pass
The appdirs package does a nice job on finding the standard place for installed apps on various platforms. I wonder if extending it to discover or allow some sort of "uninstalled" status for developers would make sense.
If you're using setuptools, see the chapter on using non-package data files. Don't try to look for the files yourself.