Question

You can have a default value by passing a dict to ConfigParser initialization.

config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser({"test": "ok"})

But this defaults are instance wide. How can you have a different default for Section1 then from section 2?

Answer 1

Create your own subclass, with an overridden gettter? Something like this?

class MyConfigParser(ConfigParser):
    my_defaults = {
            'Section 1': 'spam',
            'Section 2': 'eggs',
    }

    def get(self, section, key):
        try:
            return ConfigParser.get(self, section, key)
        except ConfigParser.NoSectionError:
            if section in self.my_defaults:
                self.add_section(section)
                self.set(section, key, self.my_defaults[section])
                return self.my_defaults[section]
            else:
                raise
        except ConfigParser.NoOptionError:
            if section in self.my_defaults:
                self.set(section, key, self.my_defaults[section])
                return self.my_defaults[section]
            else:
                raise