Use yaml for a civilized config file.

conf/locale/config

-{
- "locales" : ["en"],
- "dummy-locale" : "eo"
-}
+This file is now at config.yaml in the same directory.

conf/locale/config.yaml

+# Configuration for i18n workflow.
+
+locales: 
+    - en
+    - fr
+    - ko_KR
+
+    # More languages we might want someday, these have started on Transifex.
+    # ru
+    # es_419
+    # ja_JP
+    # pt_BR
+    # zh_CN
+    # zh_TW
+    # ar
+    # es_ES
+    # fa_IR
+    # tr_TR
+    # de_DE
+    # id
+    # hi
+    # vi
+    # pt_PT
+    # lt_LT
+    # gl
+    # it_IT
+    # cs
+    # et_EE
+    # nb
+    # sk
+
+# The locale used for fake-accented English, for testing.
+dummy-locale: eo

i18n/config.py

 import os
-import json
+
+import yaml
 from path import path
 
 # BASE_DIR is the working directory to execute django-admin commands from.
@@ -16,7 +17,13 @@ class Configuration(object):
     # Reads localization configuration in json format
 
     """
-    _source_locale = 'en'
+    DEFAULTS = {
+        'generate_merge': {},
+        'ignore_dirs': [],
+        'locales': ['en'],
+        'segment': {},
+        'source_locale': 'en',
+    }
 
     def __init__(self, filename):
         self._filename = filename
@@ -29,24 +36,12 @@ class Configuration(object):
         if not os.path.exists(filename):
             raise Exception("Configuration file cannot be found: %s" % filename)
         with open(filename) as stream:
-            return json.load(stream)
-
-    @property
-    def locales(self):
-        """
-        Returns a list of locales declared in the configuration file,
-        e.g. ['en', 'fr', 'es']
-        Each locale is a string.
-        """
-        return self._config['locales']
+            return yaml.safe_load(stream)
 
-    @property
-    def source_locale(self):
-        """
-        Returns source language.
-        Source language is English.
-        """
-        return self._source_locale
+    def __getattr__(self, name):
+        if name in self.DEFAULTS:
+            return self._config.get(name, self.DEFAULTS[name])
+        raise AttributeError("Configuration has no such setting: {!r}".format(name))
 
     @property
     def dummy_locale(self):
@@ -76,4 +71,4 @@ class Configuration(object):
         return self.get_messages_dir(self.source_locale)
 
 
-CONFIGURATION = Configuration(LOCALE_DIR.joinpath('config').normpath())
+CONFIGURATION = Configuration(LOCALE_DIR.joinpath('config.yaml').normpath())

i18n/tests/test_config.py

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ class TestConfiguration(TestCase):
     """
 
     def test_config(self):
-        config_filename = os.path.normpath(os.path.join(LOCALE_DIR, 'config'))
+        config_filename = os.path.normpath(os.path.join(LOCALE_DIR, 'config.yaml'))
         config = Configuration(config_filename)
         self.assertEqual(config.source_locale, 'en')