Keep ConfigParser output files sorted

Question

I\'ve noticed with my source control that the content of the output files generated with ConfigParser is never in the same order. Sometimes sections will change place or opt

Answer 1

If you want to take it a step further than Alexander Ljungberg's answer and also sort the sections and the contents of the sections you can use the following:

config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser({}, collections.OrderedDict)
config.read('testfile.ini')
# Order the content of each section alphabetically
for section in config._sections:
    config._sections[section] = collections.OrderedDict(sorted(config._sections[section].items(), key=lambda t: t[0]))

# Order all sections alphabetically
config._sections = collections.OrderedDict(sorted(config._sections.items(), key=lambda t: t[0] ))

# Write ini file to standard output
config.write(sys.stdout)

This uses OrderdDict dictionaries (to keep ordering) and sorts the read ini file from outside ConfigParser by overwriting the internal _sections dictionary.