configparser2

4.0.0 verified Fri May 01 auth: no python deprecated

Backport of Python 3.5's configparser to older Python versions (2.6-3.5). Version 4.0.0 is the final release. Provides the updated ConfigParser with features like mapping protocol support, ordered dicts, and interpolation depth checking. Consider using Python 3's standard library configparser instead.

pip install configparser2==4.0.0

Common errors

error ImportError: No module named configparser2 ↓

cause Package not installed or pip installed in wrong environment.

fix

Run pip install configparser2==4.0.0 in the same Python environment where your script runs.

error AttributeError: 'ConfigParser' object has no attribute 'read_file' ↓

cause Accessing method only available in Python 3's configparser; configparser2 may not have all modern methods.

fix

Use read() or read_string() instead, or check docs for available methods.

error ConfigParser.DuplicateSectionError: Key '...' with value '...' already exists ↓

cause The library version 4.0.0 defaults to `strict=True`, which raises on duplicate keys.

fix

Initialize with ConfigParser(strict=False) to allow duplicate keys (though not recommended).

Warnings

deprecated configparser2 is no longer maintained. Use Python 3's standard library configparser instead, or the backport 'configparser' package if stuck on Python 2. ↓

fix Switch to `import configparser` (stdlib backport) or upgrade to Python 3.

breaking In version 4.0.0, the `ConfigParser` class may have different default behavior for interpolation compared to older versions. Specifically, `strict` parameter defaults may break existing config files with duplicate keys. ↓

fix Set `strict=False` when creating ConfigParser if you rely on duplicate key behavior: `ConfigParser(strict=False)`.

gotcha Installing configparser2 will uninstall the standard library backport `configparser` due to package conflicts. This can break other tools that depend on the stdlib backport. ↓

fix Use a virtual environment to isolate projects, or avoid installing both packages simultaneously.

Imports

ConfigParser
wrong
```
from configparser import ConfigParser
```
correct
```
from configparser2 import ConfigParser
```
configparser is the stdlib backport name; configparser2 is the correct package name for this library.
SafeConfigParser
wrong
```
from ConfigParser import SafeConfigParser
```
correct
```
from configparser2 import SafeConfigParser
```
Old Python 2.x ConfigParser module was capitalized; configparser2 uses lower-case package name.

Quickstart

Minimal example using ConfigParser and environment variable for auth.

from configparser2 import ConfigParser
import os

config = ConfigParser()
config.read_string(os.environ.get('CONFIG_STRING', '[DEFAULT]\nkey=value\n'))
print(dict(config['DEFAULT']))