Re: A standard package for config files is needed

[dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison)]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in message news:<ad5a2j$5jj$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...
> Building a data structure in memory and moving it in/out via Streams
> provides an answer that is simple & portable to any platform. (You'd still

No its not. There's nothing in the Ada standard that says the data
written out to streams has to be portable, or even what its format is
at all. I think the order subobjects of compound structures get
written out is specified, but that's about it. Configuration files
generated via this method will not work with another compiler, will
probably not work on another platform, and are not even guaranteed to
work with *the same* compiler after an upgrade (unless your vendor
cares to give you that guarantee).

Also realise that for many programs, developing their own tools to
allow users to change the settings would be a real pain. Not every
program is an interactive GUI app.

With a text file you can lay all the options out there for the user,
and even add comments to explain *why* the settings were put where
they currently are. You can't easily do that with a program
(particuarly an embeded or real-time app with no user interface).

-- 
T.E.D. 
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