Re: A standard package for config files is needed

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:4519e058.0205300952.192e8274@posting.google.com...
>
>    o Useability - On many systems the whole point of a configuration
> file is that it can be edited off-line without using any special tools
> or programs.

I think that depends on what sort of usage model one puts forth for it. If
the model is to have the program check its registry and update anything
(based on user interaction or other means) that it must have in order to
run, then it doesn't have to come from a text file. This has the advantage
that it doesn't need to do any error checking, parsing, etc. You just read
it and write it as a stream.

I see the point of going to ASCII. But then its got to do a lot more work &
I'm not sure there's enough value to outweigh the negatives. If its got to
be in ASCII, I'd like to see it in an XML format - so we'd have an excuse to
need an XML parser & DOM as part of Grace. :-) Including that would add a
lot more value.

>    o Portability - Use of this package should not, in and of itself,
> render a system non-portable. It would be almost impossible to come up
> with a binary format that is portable. It can be done, but using text
> as the format is probably the easiest way.
>
You mean "Portability" in the sense of writing the INI/Registry on one
system and moving the file to another system? Depending on how its used, I
don't think it would need to do that very much. If its saving installation
information and locations of various important files/directories, that is
going to be system dependent anyway. If its remembering a user's
preferences, installing somewhere else probably is for a different user
and/or isn't going to be that big a deal for a user to reconfigure anyway. I
can't think of any circumstances where I'd want to lift the Registry from
Windows and move it to a Unix system. Why would I care that I can't do this
with the AdaINIRegistry?


>
> You are absolutely right that this opens a big can of worms as to what
> the proper format should be. That's why I'm most interested in if its
> possible to reach some kind of consensus on what the format should be.
>
XML - maybe its overkill, but it means developing other things that can be
used in other places. We create more leverage.


> Just to lift another rock; I've seen programs that use CSV for
> configuration files. This allows the files to be easily manipluated
> with common database or spreadsheet tools. It also allows for easy
> addition of all sorts of attributes.

Never seen that and wouldn't know how to comment on it. No reason why a
self-contained Ada package for Ada programming purposes would need to do
anything other than whatever we want it to do, so I doubt it would have to
utilize CSV or anything else. It doesn't have to be backwards-compatible. It
has to satisfy the needs of some large body of Ada programmers & that's
about it.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com