Add audeer.load_configuration()

[hagenw]

Add audeer.load_configuration() to provide a unified way for handling configuration files, including providing a default config file, supporting overriding by user config files and by environment variables.

The new function can then be reused inside audb and audmodel and will solve audeering/audb#485.

We need pyaml to read the configuration files, but to not add a new default dependency we add it as optonal dependency that you need to enable with audeer[yaml] in order to use audeer.load_configuration().

I also update the unrelated tests/test_install.py as it used pyyaml before in the tests. As this is now a dependency of audeer, I switched to python-dotenv.

[sourcery-ai]

Reviewer's Guide

Introduce audeer.load_configuration() as a unified configuration loader with YAML file + environment variable merging, wire it into the top-level package API, add tests and optional YAML dependency, and adjust install tests to use wrapt instead of PyYAML.

Flow diagram for audeer.load_configuration() merging logic

flowchart TD
    A[Call load_configuration] --> B[Load default_config_file via _load_configuration_file]
    B --> C{user_config_files provided?}
    C -- no --> D{env_prefix provided?}
    C -- yes --> E[Iterate user_config_files and merge with _load_configuration_file]
    E --> D
    D -- no --> G{validate callable provided?}
    D -- yes --> F[Override values with environment via _override_with_environment]
    F --> G
    G -- yes --> H[Call validate on merged config]
    G -- no --> I[Return merged config]
    H --> I

    subgraph File_loading
        B
        E
    end

    subgraph Environment_override
        F --> J[For each config key, read env var and parse via _parse_environment_value]
    end

Loading

File-Level Changes

Change	Details	Files
Add unified configuration loading helper that merges default, user, and environment-based settings with type-aware casting.	Implement load_configuration() to load a default YAML config file, apply one or more user config files in order, optionally override values from environment variables, and call an optional validator on the merged config. Add _load_configuration_file() to lazily import pyyaml, read a YAML file if it exists, and return an empty dict for missing or empty files. Add _override_with_environment() to update a config dict in place based on env_prefix_UPPERCASED_KEY variables only for existing keys. Add _parse_environment_value() to convert environment strings to bool, int, float, list, or dict, using JSON parsing for list/dict types.	audeer/core/config.py
Expose the new configuration loader in the public API and document/install its YAML dependency properly.	Export load_configuration from the audeer package’s init to make it part of the public API. Declare an optional 'yaml' extra in pyproject.toml that installs pyyaml and add pyyaml to the dev dependencies for tests and docs. Add/load API docs stub entry for the updated audeer API (if applicable in the docs tree).	audeer/__init__.py pyproject.toml docs/api-src/audeer.rst
Extend test coverage for configuration loading behavior and adjust install tests to avoid depending on PyYAML itself as the test package.	Add tests for load_configuration covering missing and empty files, default vs user configs, multiple user files, environment overrides with type casting, boolean false handling, and validator execution/raising. Change tests that exercise audeer.install_package() to use the 'wrapt' package instead of 'PyYaml', updating version constraints accordingly.	tests/test_config.py tests/test_install.py

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.0%. Comparing base (409724c) to head (82b4902).

Additional details and impacted files

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
audeer/__init__.py	100.0% <100.0%> (ø)
audeer/core/config.py	100.0% <100.0%> (ø)

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