["python","properties","configparser"]
Properties file in python (similar to Java Properties)

Given the following format (.properties or .ini): propertyName1=propertyValue1 propertyName2=propertyValue2 ... propertyNameN=propertyValueN For Java there is the Properties class that offers functionality to parse / interact with the above format. Is there something similar in python's standard library (2.x) ? If not, what other alternatives do I have ?
For .ini files there is the configparser module that provides a format compatible with .ini files. Anyway there's nothing available for parsing complete .properties files, when I have to do that I simply use jython (I'm talking about scripting).