Given a hiveconf parameter that is configured like this: > [/my/empty/] > param= When the code uses get_integer() with the default value of 0: > param = self.hive.get_integer("/my/empty/param", 0) .. it will give a BadIntegerFormat error: > File "/opt/thinlinc/modules/thinlinc/hiveconf.py", line 221, in get_integer > raise BadIntegerFormat() > thinlinc.hiveconf.BadIntegerFormat It feels like the sane approach would simply be to return the default value.