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From: Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Use of XML for config files
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 14:45:56 +0000 (UTC)
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Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
: If we are to stick with simple attribute-value pairs, then XML would
: be major overkill.

Having dealt with samba config files,

# the option 'an option', dependent on foo = value, provided option bar=yes,
# does bla bla bla
 an option = a value

I really enjoy well structured configuration data. This is where
a reasonably small DTD enters the scene, explaining the relations
among configurable items. Being herectic for a moment, I'd say
that you could even

-  support a config API that uses a DTD with XML as input and
   translates this into a program specific useful internal representation
-  "map" an application specific DTD to a common DTD for configurations.

Lists of key:=value are flat, possibly interrupted by section headings
providing a very basic name space, XML data are trees with nodes that
can be individually address by 
- paths,
- IDs
- predicates.

To me this looks somewhat like an asm-listing compared to a 
structured program.

-- Georg