Reading weird config file

parse.py

def _parse_config_file(config_file):
    """
    Parse given config file and return dict of settings
    
    [load]
    files=a,b,c

    [process]
    for x in xrange(10):
        foo()

    [export]
    files=x,y,z
    """

    settings = {}
    config = ConfigParser.SafeConfigParser()

    config.read(config_file)
    settings['load'] = config.get('load', 'files').split(',')
    settings['export'] = config.get('export', 'data').split(',')

    # Parse process portion differently b/c it's expected to be 'raw' python
    # code and this doesn't fit into the ConfigParser format.
    with open(config_file, 'r') as file_obj:
        file_data = file_obj.read()

        # Match ALL data in process section with whitespace intact
        # Note that this is somewhat imprecise b/c it assumes the user will
        # never have [export] in their python code even though this is
        # techincally a valid expression.
        pattern = r'\[process\]([\s\S]+)\[export\]'
        process_section = re.search(pattern, file_data)

        if process_section is None:
            # Use ConfigParser exception b/c it's descriptive and allows
            # callers to think we are using only the configparser module to
            # parse the file.
            raise ConfigParser.NoSectionError('Missing process section')

    # Remove any leading whitespace around the section headers
    settings['process'] = process_section.group(1).strip()

    return settings