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From: "Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Config_Files proposal
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 09:12:33 -0400
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Date: 2002-06-20T13:12:34+00:00
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Well, if, for example, the decisions for the API lead to some kind of
complex tree-like structure, you might have a really hard time storing this
in some simpler file format like .CSV or as simple attribute/value pairs.

I suggested elsewhere that establishing a package spec now and leaving the
file format for later would be a wise thing. It starts some progress and
helps clarify the problems. Assumimg that the API is going to have something
pretty basic like "Load/Store" operations with a file name and a data
structure, you really don't have to settle the file format issues until
later & it creates the possibility of trying out many different ones.

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


"Stephen Leake" <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in message
news:u4rfzw2kx.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov...
>
> Since we keep saying the API _must_ be independent of the file format,
> I don't see how finishing the API can help decide what file format to
> use.
>