From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,47bc849aad30d586 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-30 16:08:26 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!mango.news.easynet.net!easynet.net!Quza.UK.peer!nntp.gblx.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: A standard package for config files is needed Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:39:30 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3CF5D7AC.975B0DB3@cs.tu-berlin.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1022765971 5747 136.170.200.133 (30 May 2002 13:39:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 May 2002 13:39:31 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:25043 Date: 2002-05-30T13:39:31+00:00 List-Id: I tend to agree that I don't see any big reason why a config file needs to be in ASCII - so long as we're talking about an application preserving various settings over its lifetime. (colors, fonts, user preferences of one sort or another...) When you get to talking about things like "I need to know what directory you installed XYZ in so I can find it and run..." then you start seeing some need for ASCII - or at least some user-edit capability. Of course one could design apps to ask the user for this information on its first execution or if it doesn't find what it wants & then store it from there. It requires a little discipline in that case from the programming side, but basically that means you don't have to store the data in any sort of human readable format or worry about checking it for errors on input. 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 need to resolve how you would have different configurations for different users, etc., but I could see that all as being resolved when designing the "Ada Registry" package...) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com wrote in message news:tulJ8.9347$7q5.169326745@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com... > The Windows registry certainly is an all too common failure point and as > a sort of parallel file system it's painful to backup/restore or uninstall > programs, but improvements in config files are not, I suggest, to be found > in better syntaxes for an ASCII text file.