Re: Use of XML for config files

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote:
just a little update:

[tools]
: brush.type=airbrush
: brush.shape=round
: brush.color=green
: 
:> <tools>
:>   <brush type="airbrush" shape="circle" color="green"/>
:>   ...
:> </tools>
: 
: OK. So we add a little more to the ini format. We still don't get into
: matched-tags hell etc.

To each his own hell :-) (broken lines with a fpt value (incl dot),
an '=' character in the value text etc...)
: 
: Maybe I'm not seeing any big difference between "XML parser" and "Config
: file API" here. If someone wants a config file that complex, why not just
: use one of the existing XML parsers? 

we could reconcile the two formats, I think, like so.

Suppose the configuration is visible through some protected
object 'conf', and suppose access to some specific value is coded using
a hashing scheme:

conf.get("[tools]brush.color"); -- or some such

This is very similar to an XPath expression

conf.get("/tools/brush/@color");

Does this open up an opportunity to build an abstraction?

-- Georg
: 

-- 
---
Microsoft Windows--a fresh perspective on information hiding