From bf480015f40b3d539c0591ef6aed02e47ffae267 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Martin Olveyra <molveyra@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:02:53 -0200
Subject: [PATCH] added support generic python literals in settings, and for
 explicitly interpret a setting value as dict

---
 scrapy/settings/__init__.py   | 10 ++++++++++
 scrapy/tests/test_settings.py |  8 ++++++++
 2 files changed, 18 insertions(+)

diff --git a/scrapy/settings/__init__.py b/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
index be81bfd9d..345c3c133 100644
--- a/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import json
 from . import default_settings
 
 
@@ -37,6 +38,15 @@ class Settings(object):
         else:
             return str(value).split(',')
 
+    def getdict(self, name, default=None):
+        value = self.get(name)
+        if value is None:
+            return default or {}
+        if isinstance(value, basestring):
+            value = json.loads(value)
+        if isinstance(value, dict):
+            return value
+        raise ValueError("Cannot convert value for setting '%s' to dict: '%s'" % (name, value))
 
 class CrawlerSettings(Settings):
 
diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_settings.py b/scrapy/tests/test_settings.py
index 608afb045..68d30ccc6 100644
--- a/scrapy/tests/test_settings.py
+++ b/scrapy/tests/test_settings.py
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ class SettingsTest(unittest.TestCase):
             'TEST_LIST1': ['one', 'two'],
             'TEST_LIST2': 'one,two',
             'TEST_STR': 'value',
+            'TEST_DICT1': {'key1': 'val1', 'ke2': 3},
+            'TEST_DICT2': '{"key1": "val1", "ke2": 3}',
         })
         assert settings.getbool('TEST_ENABLED1') is True
         assert settings.getbool('TEST_ENABLED2') is True
@@ -47,6 +49,12 @@ class SettingsTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(settings['TEST_STRx'], None)
         self.assertEqual(settings.get('TEST_STRx'), None)
         self.assertEqual(settings.get('TEST_STRx', 'default'), 'default')
+        self.assertEqual(settings.getdict('TEST_DICT1'), {'key1': 'val1', 'ke2': 3})
+        self.assertEqual(settings.getdict('TEST_DICT2'), {'key1': 'val1', 'ke2': 3})
+        self.assertEqual(settings.getdict('TEST_DICT3'), {})
+        self.assertEqual(settings.getdict('TEST_DICT3', {'key1': 5}), {'key1': 5})
+        self.assertRaises(ValueError, settings.getdict, 'TEST_LIST1')
+
 
 class CrawlerSettingsTest(unittest.TestCase):