Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 09:18:22 -0600 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Andrew Reilly <areilly@bigpond.net.au> Cc: Jack Rusher <jar@integratus.com>, jonathan@graehl.org, freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: configuration files, XML, Mac OS X release Message-ID: <3ACDDE3E.79BBBDAC@softweyr.com> References: <NCBBLOALCKKINBNNEDDLMEBODNAA.jonathan@graehl.org> <20010325170513Z.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <3ABEB519.CA9F1029@integratus.com> <20010326181443.A75840@gurney.reilly.home>
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Andrew Reilly wrote:
>
> On Sun, Mar 25, 2001 at 07:18:49PM -0800, Jack Rusher wrote:
> > Jordan Hubbard wrote:
> > >
> > > The project has a Mac (eatmorepie.freebsd.org) running the OS X
> > > release candidate, though it appears to be down at the moment (I'll
> > > fix that). Someone can certainly log into it at some point and
> > > look this stuff over.
> >
> > I took a look at the release during the big pre release party at
> > Apple. It looks like the only XML DTD they have in the system is a
> > property list DTD designed to allow them to store groups of key/value
> > pairs as the backing store for application configuration data.
> >
> > I remain willing to help integrate a lightweight BSD license XML based
> > configuration management system into FreeBSD. Does anybody really want
> > such a beast?
>
> I really like the idea of a uniform and configurator-friendly
> config management system. I'm not crazy about XML, but my
> opinion on the subject hardly matters.
The problem with XML is that it is an entirely adequate language to
export to and import from, but quite ugly to store in, since every
setting is arbitrarily long. This isn't much different from what we
have now, with rc.conf et al, but we don't really edit the existing
script files programmatically.
In order to change a setting using XML, you end up parsing the entire
file, changing the setting in-memory, then re-writing the file, which
is less than elegant. I'd sure like to see us come up with a better
solution before plunging off down this path.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/
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