bash - how to "source" file into python script

Question

I have a text file /etc/default/foo which contains one line:

FOO="/path/to/foo"

In my python script, I need to reference the variable FOO.

What is the simplest way to "source" the file /etc/default/foo into my python script, same as I would do in bash?

. /etc/default/foo

Answer 1

Same answer as @jil however, that answer is specific to some historical version of Python.

In modern Python (3.x):

exec(open('filename').read())

replaces execfile('filename') from 2.x