An updated version is now available, based to the feedback of Phillip J.
Eby and David Hopwood (stand-alone module[1], patch[2]):
- the module is now reentrant
- the sloppy case with Name nodes is now covered properly
- the node lookup procedure was optimized, leading to a 20% speed
increase on the average case... Phillip, I was wrong to doubt you. ;-)
There is undoubtedly still room from improvement, but that's a good start.
>> But I agree this looks a lot like JSON, since ecmascript syntax for
>> literals looks a lot like the one of Python... For the same reasons there
>> is a need for JSON, I think having something like miniconf in the
>> standard lib would benefit the users.
>
> Actually, I would see more reason to include JSON in the standard library,
> since it's at least something approaching an internet protocol these days.
Having JSON there would indeed be nice: In fact, I recall being initially
surprised it was not supported by the standard library.
But is there a need to choose? Why not have both? The miniconf approach
has its advantages and differences:
- The code is short and simple. Since all the real work is performed by
the Python parser, very little has to be done on top of that: it should be
easy to maintain, and will benefit of all the future work (patches, etc.)
that will be integrated to it in the future.
- The source it works on is valid Python source, which seems to be a plus
for a dynamic, reflexive language such as Python... Things such as this
will work:
>>> from miniconf import dump
>>> file('test.py','w').write(dump({'spam': 1}))
>>> import test
I know this in not the best example, but you get the idea...
- Unlike JSON, miniconf is not introducing any new notation or syntax at
all: it uses a strict, well defined subset of the Python grammar that
every Python user is already familiar with; it is in no way a
data-interchange format, but it feels pretty natural in a all-python
environment... In that sense, it is well documented and standardized.
- Am I missing something, or is JSON not supporting comments inside the
parse tree? That's not really convenient for storage of configuration
information.
Anyway, if I had to choose between the two, I would definitively want
simplejson part of the standard library well before miniconf, since it can
be used in so many different situations, but I wouldn't
choose JSON as a configuration format given the choice to use the Python
notation employed by miniconf either.
Yours,
--
Sylvain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Nobody said computers were going to be polite.
[1]http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi?:action=display&name=miniconf&version=1.1.0
[2]http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1527597&group_id=5470&atid=355470
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