How to read config from string or list?

You could use a buffer which behaves like a file: Python 3 solution

import configparser
import io

s_config = """
[example]
is_real: False
"""
buf = io.StringIO(s_config)
config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read_file(buf)
print(config.getboolean('example', 'is_real'))

In Python 2.7, this implementation was correct:

import ConfigParser
import StringIO

s_config = """
[example]
is_real: False
"""
buf = StringIO.StringIO(s_config)
config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
config.readfp(buf)
print config.getboolean('example', 'is_real')

The question was tagged as python-2.7 but just for the sake of completeness: Since 3.2 you can use the ConfigParser function read_string() so you don't need the StringIO method anymore.

import configparser

s_config = """
[example]
is_real: False
"""
config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read_string(s_config)
print(config.getboolean('example', 'is_real'))