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From: Volkert Barr <barr@cs.tu-berlin.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Use of XML for config files
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 08:26:58 +0200
Organization: TU Berlin, Fachbereich Informatik
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Date: 2002-06-04T06:26:59+00:00
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Mike and Lynn Card wrote:
> 
> Hello CLA-
> 
> I thought I would mention that some of our programs at Lockheed-Martin
> have begun using XML for configuration files. It really is handy because
> you don't have to write your own token-paring code, and I would expect
> it to eventually become standard practice. 
> I used XML recently on a project to store some static configuration data
> and read it in and turned it into Ada objects using the SAX facility in
> XMLAda. This was a great technique that saved me a lot of time.
Yes XML can help here, but the most projects i have seen, XML was a
complete 
overkill! Don't forget, that a syntax definition the XML files is
necessary 
and parsing/navigation/errorhandling is still your problem! I believe, a 
simple Package/Key/Value Style works well for most problems.

And today, XMLAda based on the GNAT Spitbol package and is not 
compiler independent! But compiler independence should be an requirement
for 
the Configuration Packages! If there is a consensus that XML is needed,
the
Spitbowl Package must be ported! 

Volkert