'Transforms a text line from the configuration file into a tuple
:type line: string
:param line: line of text from the configuration file
:return: a tuple with key and value'

def line_to_keyval(self, line):

    parts = line.split('=', 1)
    key = parts[0].rstrip()
    if (len(parts) == 1):
        val = None
    elif (len(parts) == 2):
        val = parts[1].strip()
    return (key, val)
