ConfigParser: writes a list but reads a string?

[funkyj]

I'm interested in the same sort of config file issues.

Unfortunately the restricted execution has fallen out of favor.  My
preferred solution would be to have a configEval() function that is
just like the regular Python eval() but only accepts a subset of the
python language, e.g. creating the basic built in datatypes and
variable assignment and perhaps a short list of safe library functions:

    favoriteColors = [ 'red', 'blue', 'orange']
    props = {'fish': 7, 'cow': 'milk'}
    # a comment
    otherstuff = (props, favoritColors, 7)

While currently I just write my config file in python and eval() it,
this sucks from a security standpoint (e.g. someone could replace the
config file with a python program that deletes my hard drive).  Thanks
for the configObj suggestion, I'll look into that.

making the config file XML and using xml.dom is another option,
although XML is a bit ugly to edit by hand.
  --jfc