Re: A standard package for config files is needed

[Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com>]

achrist@easystreet.com wrote:
> There is some chance for a big mess here, thanks to progress that MS
> has already made in this direction.  There is support for ini files
> in the Windows api, and MS has at some time said that it might migrate
> the ini files into the registry without letting the application using
> the Windows API to access the ini parameters know. 

I think that already works, if you go thru the right INI APIs. Of course, if
you use open/read/write/close it won't work.

> The possible downsides of all this are stunning, but the upside is that
> because the registry is like a database, the programmer using the
> registry
> does not so much worry about what happens if multiple programs accessing
> and updating the same settings might be running simultaneously.

Yes. And the other upside is that the OS can *do* things with that info,
*because* it knows it's an INI file, that it can't do with plain old files.
Like move them between computers when you log in, and let different programs
update different parts on different machines and then merge the results
together when both programs terminate, and so on.

Was just a thought, really. My intention was to say that the API would work
better as something like "here's a key and a value, remember it" than it
would "output a [blah] header, output a key, output a value" kind of thing,
implying a sequential file as an underlying implementation. 

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
** http://home.san.rr.com/dnew/DNResume.html **
** http://images.fbrtech.com/dnew/ **

     My brain needs a "back" button so I can
         remember where I left my coffee mug.