configparser

Python’s build-in module configparser provides a handy way to manage API keys that you always want to keep out of any public code in GitHub repos, gists, etc.

This chapter shows a quick, easy way for beginners to use a .cfg file to keep secret keys and tokens in one place.

Set up your config file

Let’s say all your Python work and project folders are inside a folder named python on your computer. We are looking at files you run locally, not on a server.

  1. To make your config file easy to access, but not likely to be deleted (by you) by accident, create a new folder in that top-level folder — which I will assume is named python — on your computer.

  2. Name the new folder config.

  3. Inside the config folder, create a new file named keys_config.cfg. This is a plain-text file. You can create it in Atom or any code editor.

  4. Write at least one key — or set of keys and tokens — into the file in the exact pattern shown below. Then save the file.

    [openweather]
api_key = mt732wbt5kh5ea4bkw7qytbb9gdkaew4

[twitter]
consumer_key = d53Qe4uf5LMWuQeQFFG66n6BN
consumer_secret = Yxf5n2BwnRELRrkkVjWgpTu48sz5KwGD52324PuwkFWdmVGP4m
access_token = 9922431-d53Qe4uf5LMWuQeQFFG66n6BN
access_token_secret = ubfWMR8WYucrzeaQdrqkm6SrhYTMVQSsxZWpNbtUCMX5u

[google]
api_key = ubfWMR8WYucrzeaQdrqkm6SrhYTMVQSsxZWpNbtUCMX5u

These are not real keys. Do not try to use them.

  • Note, there are no quotation marks in the file.

  • The name of the vendor or source is in brackets.

  • Use linespaces between items exactly as shown.

Accessing the config file

Your config file can contain keys and tokens for many different APIs. When you are writing a Python script to access a particular API, you will want to get the keys only for that one API.

For an example, let’s say you’re accessing the OpenWeather API in a new Python script. Your script is in a folder named weather, and that folder is inside the python folder referred to above. In that case, the code in your script is:

from configparser import ConfigParser
config = ConfigParser()
config.read('../config/keys_config.cfg')

API_KEY = config.get('openweather', 'api_key')

Note, you will need to ensure that the path on the third line above matches your system. The image below shows the relationship represented in the code above.

You will use config.get() separately for each key or token.

Example of local file structure screenshot

More info

Read more about configparser in the Python docs.

You might find it necessary to use Python’s pathlib module for writing relative paths. Learn more here.

See an example of the code in a short Flask script.

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