# Importing config files

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 9, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569 "2010-04-09T01:20:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dlucci)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569/1 "2010-04-09T01:20:59Z")

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Hi everyone,  
I am writing a program for my research that uses configuration files.  
I was curious how to import these files into my ruby program. Any help  
would be appreciated. If it helps, I am running ruby 1.9.

Cheers,  
dlucci

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dlucci)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569/2 "2010-04-09T03:43:26Z")

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What kind of configuration files? What format are they in? YAML, XML?

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**Author:** ![dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dlucci)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569/3 "2010-04-09T03:53:45Z")

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Well, I am not too educated in configuration files. I was going to just  
write it in ruby (thats the language I am working in). The  
configuration file is being used to specify intervals in time. My  
project is generating a report for SysAdmins and this will allow them to  
specify the interval at which they want the reports to be compared.  
Getting back to the main problem, I had thought it was either “require”  
or “include”, but both of those proved fruitless. Hope this info helps.

Cheers,  
dlucci

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dlucci)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569/4 "2010-04-09T04:56:02Z")

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If you could include a sample of the files’ contents, it would be  
helpful.  
require is used to access ruby libraries. What you are looking for is  
the  
File class.  
For example

File.open(‘config.txt’).each do |line|  
puts line  
end

will spit out each line of a file.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@dlucci](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dlucci)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 12:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/importing-config-files/186569/5 "2010-04-09T12:05:38Z")

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On 04/09/2010 03:53 AM, Derril L. wrote:

> Well, I am not too educated in configuration files. I was going to just  
> write it in ruby (thats the language I am working in). The  
> configuration file is being used to specify intervals in time. My  
> project is generating a report for SysAdmins and this will allow them to  
> specify the interval at which they want the reports to be compared.  
> Getting back to the main problem, I had thought it was either “require”  
> or “include”, but both of those proved fruitless. Hope this info helps.

The simples approach is to use “load”:

load File.join(ENV[‘HOME’], ‘.myconfrc’)

file ~/.myconfrc:

$interval = 15

Kind regards

robert