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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: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 09:18:37 +0200
Organization: TU Berlin, Fachbereich Informatik
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Date: 2002-06-05T07:18:38+00:00
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> What that means is that if we were to use XML, we should support both
> user-defined configuration item attributes and some kind of object
> nesting (configuration items defined within other configuration
> items). I haven't really heard anyone seriously arguing the usefulness
> of this stuff.
> 
> If we are to stick with simple attribute-value pairs, then XML would
> be major overkill.

I have set up a first small datamodel for hierarchical configuration 
data (nested Config_Items containing lists of (Key,Value)-Tupels) 
and defined a BNF-Grammar for text (file) representation of this
data. I hope Stephan Leake will add it to his "Config-Proposal Page"!

The grammes defines the following style:

--
-- Comment Block
--
Config_Item1.Key := Value

-- Comment
Config_Item1.Inner_Config_Item2.Key := Value


The same can be done in XML, but the next you need is
an "XML Editor" ;-) (That is one reason, why there is so
much Business (and money) around XML.) 

XML-like Configuration:

<configuration>
  <config_item name= "Config_Item1" >
    <Key> Key </Key>
    <value> Value </value>
    <config_item name = "Config_Item2" >
      <entry>
        <key> Key </key>
        <value> Value </value>
      </entry>   
  </config_item>
</configuration>


Volkert