module that reads a settings file

settings.py

+"""Brain Mapper Settings Loader File
+
+Description:
+
+    This file contains several functions required for loading the settings of BrainMapper.
+
+Usage:
+
+    To use the modules, import the packages and instantiate any module/block class as you wish:
+
+        from settings import Settings
+
+"""
+
+import ast
+import configparser
+from collections.abc import Mapping
+
+
+class Settings(Mapping):
+    """
+    Settings Loader Class
+
+    This class reads a settings file, and loads the data as dictionaries.
+    It makes use of configparser, which implements a basic configuration language which provides a structure similar to what’s found in Microsoft Windows INI files.
+
+    Args:
+        settings_file (str): Settings file name
+
+    Returns:
+        item: Different str, int and float values corresponding to the various settings dictionary keys
+        int: Lenght of the various dictionaries
+        list: A list of a given settings dictionary's (key, value) tuple pairs.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, settings_file='settings.ini'):
+        configurator = configparser.ConfigParser()
+        configurator.read(settings_file)
+        self.settings_dictionary = _parse_values(configurator)
+
+    def __getitem__(self, key):
+        return self.settings_dictionary[key]
+
+    def __len__(self):
+        return len(self.settings_dictionary)
+
+    def __iter__(self):
+        return self.settings_dictionary.items()
+
+
+def _parse_values(configurator):
+    """ Configurator file reader
+
+    This function reads the various sections in a configurator file.
+    Then, for every section, it reads the key-value pairs.
+    Using the key-value pairs, it constructs a nested dictionary for each section key.
+
+    Args:
+        configurator (class): ConfigParser object class.
+
+    Returns:
+        settings_dictionary (dict): Dictionary containing all settings for different sections
+    """
+    settings_dictionary = {}
+    for section in configurator.sections():
+        settings_dictionary[section] = {}
+        for key, value in configurator[section].items()
+        # Safely evaluate an expression node or a Unicode or Latin-1 encoded string containing a Python expression
+        settings_dictionary[section][key] = ast.literal_eval(value)
+
+return settings_dictionary
+