how to “source” file into python script

Question

I have a text file /etc/default/foo which contains one line:

FOO=\"/path/to/foo\"

In my python script, I need to reference the

Answer 1

There are a couple ways to do this sort of thing.

• You can indeed import the file as a module, as long as the data it contains corresponds to python's syntax. But either the file in question is a .py in the same directory as your script, either you're to use imp (or importlib, depending on your version) like here.

• Another solution (that has my preference) can be to use a data format that any python library can parse (JSON comes to my mind as an example).

/etc/default/foo :

{"FOO":"path/to/foo"}

And in your python code :

import json

with open('/etc/default/foo') as file:
    data = json.load(file)
    FOO = data["FOO"]
    ## ...
    file.close()

This way, you don't risk to execute some uncertain code...

You have the choice, depending on what you prefer. If your data file is auto-generated by some script, it might be easier to keep a simple syntax like FOO="path/to/foo" and use imp.

Hope that it helps !