Scenario

A configuration file in INI format contains settings for multiple components. You need to extract database configuration values for use in another application.

Task

Write a Python script at /home/interview/parse_config.py that reads /home/interview/config.ini, extracts all key-value pairs from the database section, and saves them as a JSON file to /home/interview/config.json.

Note: You can use Python's configparser module to parse INI files.

Example

Expected output format in /home/interview/config.json:

{
  "host": "localhost",
  "port": "5432",
  "name": "appdb",
  "user": "admin"
}

Step 1: Review the INI file structure

cat /home/interview/config.ini

Identify the database section and its key-value pairs.

Step 2: Create the Python script

nano /home/interview/parse_config.py

Write a script that parses the INI file and extracts the database section:

import configparser
import json

# Parse INI file
config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read('/home/interview/config.ini')

# Extract database section as dictionary
database_config = dict(config['database'])

# Save as JSON
with open('/home/interview/config.json', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(database_config, f, indent=2)

print(f"Extracted {len(database_config)} database configuration values")

Step 3: Run the script

python3 /home/interview/parse_config.py

Step 4: Verify the output

cat /home/interview/config.json

Should show a JSON object with all key-value pairs from the database section.