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Hai Vu
Hai Vu

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How to Parse /etc/os-release

#python #parsing #howto

The Problem

As part of my daily tasks, I need to parse the /etc/os-release file for information using Python. I have seen various attempts from other people, most of which are too complicated, too cumbersome, so I came up with my own.

Below is a sample contents.

NAME="Ubuntu" VERSION="20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa)" ID=ubuntu ID_LIKE=debian PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS" VERSION_ID="20.04" HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/" SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/" PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy" VERSION_CODENAME=focal UBUNTU_CODENAME=focal
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The Solution

The easiest way to parse this file is to you the PyYAML library. However, in some projects, my team does not have access to third-party libraries and have to stay within the Python 3.7's standard libraries.

After several attempts, I came up with a fairly easy solution: Use the csv library. Below is a code snippet which parses /etc/os-release and returns a dictionary.

import csv import pathlib from pprint import pprint path = pathlib.Path("/etc/os-release") with open(path) as stream: reader = csv.reader(stream, delimiter="=") os_release = dict(reader) pprint(os_release)
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Here is the output:

{'BUG_REPORT_URL': 'https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/', 'HOME_URL': 'https://www.ubuntu.com/', 'ID': 'ubuntu', 'ID_LIKE': 'debian', 'NAME': 'Ubuntu', 'PRETTY_NAME': 'Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS', 'PRIVACY_POLICY_URL': 'https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy', 'SUPPORT_URL': 'https://help.ubuntu.com/', 'UBUNTU_CODENAME': 'focal', 'VERSION': '20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa)', 'VERSION_CODENAME': 'focal', 'VERSION_ID': '20.04'}
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How it Works

  • The file contains lines of key=value, so I use the csv library to read it and specify the equal sign as fields delimiters.
  • The reader will yield a list of (key, value) tuples
  • The dict built-in turns that list of tuples into a dictionary

Conclusion

After several attempts, I like this solution the best because it leaves the parsing to a standard library, which I assume well tested.

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