id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
1337	Convert configuration file (settings.py and urls.py) to plain text file	limodou@…	Adrian Holovaty	"I'm thinking using some tools to make apps installation easily. But I found out that is hard to modifying the settings.py and urls.py. So I suggest that whether the settings.py and urls.py can be convert to text file. Maybe you will say: if it's happened, many applications need to be converted. That's may not true, I think we can also support old-style configuration files. e.g.:

{{{
if exists(settings.py):
    import settings.py
if exists(settings.ini):
    process(settings.ini)
}}}

So two style configuration files can be proccessed. I think there are many benefits about using text configuration files, because Django is not a application, but a framework, so it'll need consider apps deployment, and even make these things easier. So how to easily modify the configration files becomes a problem, but using python file is not so easy to modify, because the syntax may be ambiguist and many hacks, so parsing it is more difficult. (I'v finished two models to deal with settings.py and urls.py, but the code is ugly and has many limits.) 

If we could adopt standard ini format, or enhanced ini format([http://wiki.woodpecker.org.cn/moin/Dict4Ini dict4ini] - written by me also, [http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/configobj.html ConfigObj]), then change the configuration  files will be very easily.

And the best benefit will be: others can easily write useful tools for deploying apps or somethings else. I'v developed some support in [http://wiki.woodpecker.org.cn/moin/NewEdit NewEdit] to help the development about Django, so I also need this. For now, I can only using the ugly modules to do these things."	enhancement	closed	Core (Other)		normal	wontfix			Unreviewed	0	0	0	0	0	0