A cascading configuration file object built on top of the ConfigParser Load a series of configuration files where later files shadow earlier For example loading 3 configuration files in order: 1) default: [main] foo: 1 bar: 2 baz: 3 2) user (~/.foo_module): [main] foo: 4 bar: 5 3) local (./foo_module): [main] foo: 7 Will result in: foo == 7 bar == 5 baz == 3 Also, parse command line options such as: ./script.py main foo 10