Re: A standard package for config files is needed

[Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

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

> I just don't see file portability being that big an issue. 

Ok. But others do, so I'm keeping it as a requirement.

> Sure, but if the protocol is for the app to establish default values on
> startup for anything that is missing and then to save values as user's
> change things in the app, it wouldn't be a big deal. 

That's only one paradigm. I'd like to support as many paradigms as
possible, while keeping the implementation simple.

> But in an embedded, realtime app, I seldom have Text_IO anyway. :-) 

Right; this package will be useless in an embedded app.

> I'm suggesting that a Stream oriented load/store would get the whole thing
> *started* and then these load/store operations could be overriden by child
> packages that might support a whole range of different options. Build the
> AdaINIRegistry as a tagged record with the right methods that hide the
> mechanism for storage and it is easily changed for different situations.

That's an idea; I'll have to think about it.

> As a matter of fact, the OO strategy would give you the natural
> means of doing default initialization of the registry because you
> could derive from the root and the "Load" checks to see that
> something is present for the app-dependent entries. If not, it
> creates them. Hmmm.....

another good idea.

-- 
-- Stephe