from ConfigParser import ConfigParser, NoOptionError class DistUpgradeConfig(ConfigParser): def __init__(self): ConfigParser.__init__(self) self.read(['DistUpgrade.cfg']) def getlist(self, section, option): try: tmp = self.get(section, option) except NoOptionError: return [] items = [x.strip() for x in tmp.split(",")] return items if __name__ == "__main__": c = DistUpgradeConfigParser() print c.getlist("Distro","MetaPkgs") print c.getlist("Distro","ForcedPurges")