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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T11:25:42+00:00

I am using SafeConfigParser , my configuration file includes a [DEFAULT] section and I

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I am using SafeConfigParser, my configuration file includes a [DEFAULT] section and I am using the below code to extract that part.

parser = SafeConfigParser(allow_no_value=True)
parser.optionxform = str  # makes names case sensitive
defaultAttributesDic = parser.defaults()

However my DEFAULT section include interpolated values such as:

A= 10000
B= %(A)s

But the problem is that defaults() returns the actual raw values (not interpolated values).
Why is that? when can that be useful? I don’t get the reason behind this decision?

I am using parser.items(section) to read other sections and that works fine. Values are returned interpolated. Should i skip defaults and use items("DEFAULT") instead? Please explain this to me?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    defaults() is a method inherited from RawConfigParser which doesn’t support interpolation.

    I think you should reserve the [DEFAULT] section for providing defaults for other sections instead of trying to “abuse” it as a “normal” section. The [DEFAULT] section has a special meaning and isn’t even included in methods like sections() or has_section().

    If you need a “default” section just call it a name other than DEFAULT.

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