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From: Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: config files proposal
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 15:13:05 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Norwegian university of science and technology
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On Sun, 02 Jun 2002 22:16:00 GMT, Stephen Leake wrote:
> Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> writes:
> 
>> Stephen Leake wrote:
>> Question: Would it make sense to allow compound values to be written
>> by converting a stream of them to base64 or something?
> 
> I think composite values are best handled by multiple levels. Ie, if
> you have a record:
> 
> type Foo is record
>    a : integer;
>    b : integer;
> end record;
> 
> you write this as (assuming Java property style)
> 
> foo.a = 1
> foo.b = 2
> 
> base64 would be good for values that don't need to be user editable. I
> guess persistent storage for a large object (whether it is composite
> or not) could be supported that way. I'm not clear why that would be
> in a typical "config file". Hmm, maybe a pixel bitmap for an icon?

xpm is ASCII based.

If you start including base64 in the config files there will be a lot
of data corruption. If one need to use sth like that then the config
file should be binary so a user cannot edit it. The user of the package
can easily make more than one config file.

Example:

   User editable settings goes in settings.config
   Program settings (like coulours, variables) goes in program.data

Then program.data can be binary or whatever, while settings.config is
ASCII.

I don't think the package should know which OS it is running on. I mean
the developer should give it the propper Path to look in I think.

Preben