Tips

#!/usr/bin/env bash

OFILE='__init__.py'
IURL='https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtgWCe1LjubedFZMVHR2QnFxekJIYlFPYmZSQmJ5SHc&output=csv'
IFILE='gdocs.csv'

echo '#!/usr/bin/env python' > $OFILE

echo '' >> $OFILE
echo '## This file is automatically generated by genctns_py ' >> $OFILE
echo '## Do not edit it' >> $OFILE
echo '## To update it execute genctns_py.sh' >> $OFILE
echo '## It downloads contents of a gDocs spreadsheet and generates a py file' >> $OFILE
echo '' >> $OFILE

echo 'Downloading contents from gdocs ('$IURL')'
wget --output-document $IFILE $IURL -o tmp.txt

echo 'Parsing file contents'
awk -F',' '$1~ /^[0-9]+/ {print $2 " = " $1 "\t##" $3}; 
$1~ /^[a-zA-Z]+/ {print "\n## "$1};' $IFILE >> $OFILE

echo 'Deleting temporary files'
#rm -f $IFILE
rm -f tmp.txt

echo 'Done'

The script is costumized to be used with this spreadsheet: http://goo.gl/G9bvP

When executed it outputs:

Downloading contents from gdocs (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtgWCe1LjubedFZMVHR2QnFxekJIYlFPYmZSQmJ5SHc&output=csv)
Parsing file contents
Deleting temporary files
Done

And generates two files, a csv file called “gdocs.csv” and a py file (__init__.py):

#!/usr/bin/env python

## This file is automatically generated by genctns.sh 
## Do not edit it
## To update it execute genctns_py.sh
## It downloads contents of google docs spreadsheet and generates a py constants file

## Address

## Motors
power_en = 1	##Enable/Disable power
motor_en = 2	##Mask to enable/disable motors

## Sensors
temp_1 = 1024	##Temperature sensor 1 value
temp_2 = 1025	##Temperature sensor 2 value
temp_3 = 1026	##Temperature sensor 3 value
temp_4 = 1027	##Temperature sensor 4 value
temp_5 = 1028	##Temperature sensor 5 value

With a little bit of bash and/or awk knowledge it can be fine-tuned to use any spreadsheet configuration you want to use. In this case I use simple constant values, but I will probably improve it to generate a class instance for each address in order to be able to recover the description or the address value from code easily.