What's the best practice using a settings file in Python? [closed]

You can have a regular Python module, say config.py, like this:

truck = dict(
    color = 'blue',
    brand = 'ford',
)
city = 'new york'
cabriolet = dict(
    color = 'black',
    engine = dict(
        cylinders = 8,
        placement = 'mid',
    ),
    doors = 2,
)

and use it like this:

import config
print(config.truck['color'])  

The sample config you provided is actually valid YAML. In fact, YAML meets all of your demands, is implemented in a large number of languages, and is extremely human friendly. I would highly recommend you use it. The PyYAML project provides a nice python module, that implements YAML.

To use the yaml module is extremely simple:

import yaml
config = yaml.safe_load(open("path/to/config.yml"))