Configuring Glue via a startup file

Glue uses a configuration system to customize aspects such as which data viewers it loads, what link functions to use, and so on. The glue configuration file is called config.py. Glue looks for this file in the following locations, in order:

• The current working directory

• The path specified in the GLUERC environment variable, if present

• The path .glue/config.py within the user’s home directory

The easiest place to start is to just create a config.py file in the current directory where you are launching glue from. If you want to use your customizations to be available for all projects, you can then consider using the GLUERC or .glue approach.

Example Usage: Custom Link Functions

As an example, let’s create some translation functions which will allow us to convert temperatures in Celsius to Farenheit:

from glue.config import link_function

@link_function(info="Celsius to Fahrenheit", output_labels=['F'])
def celsius2farhenheit(c):
    return c  * 9. / 5. + 32

@link_function(info="Fahrenheit to Celsius", output_labels=['C'])
def farhenheit2celsius(f):
    return (f - 32) * 5. / 9.

More details about this are provided in Customizing your Glue environment, but for now, let’s just assume this is how we make custom linking functions. We can copy this code into an empty config.py file in the current directory. Next time we start up Glue, the link functions now appear in the Link Dialog:

Let’s now take a look at all the available customizations in Customizing your Glue environment.