init: API

[Gilboa Davara]

On Sat, 2005-11-19 at 03:55 +0000, Joe Desbonnet wrote:
> On 11/19/05, Gilboa Davara <gilboada at netvision.net.il> wrote
> >
> > Which means: as complex as the schema; and if you decide to create a
> > single catch-all schema for all services, you'll end-up with huge
> > complex XML files that makes it almost impossible to recover a dead
> > machine using a single text editor. (vim/pico/etc)
> 
> No, a single catch all schema would be stupid. Combine several schemas
> as needed. Eg a schema can define basic system constants such as
> usernames, lists of usernames, groups, permissions, access control
> lists etc.
> 
> > Let me do the text version of this.
> >
> > #This is my version of things.
> >
> > # General.
> > SERVICENAME=NFS_main
> > SERVICEGROUP=NFS
> 
> Ok, is that encoded as UTF-8, ISO-8859-1 or what?. How do I encode a
> CR or LF in the values? How are double quotes handled?  Are equal
> signs escaped?
> 
> My point -- when writing parsers the devil is in the details. Config
> file parsing is something that the application developer should not
> concern themselves with. They should be able to rely on a standard
> library to return the config file in a object/structure that the
> software can consume.

Ummm... I can agree to most of the above, however,
A. I've yet to be convinced that there's /a need/ for international text
support within a service manager.
B. There are dozens of project that do config parsing; why not find a
good text parser and use it code? 

> 
> Joe.