On Tue, Dec 16, 1997 at 08:05:15AM -0500, Richard G. Roberto wrote: > On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, David Frey wrote: > > > Sure, you're right. This is really a good idea. The next step beyond > > dtxtdb would be a set of utilities (debask for the console, a tool > > for X11, ...) which would present these messages to the user. > > > > We had a discussion some time about this. What was the consesus? > > > > David > > I think there was none. We got side tracked on the config > file parser thing and then we all fizzled out. Basically, a > package's pre/post scripts should be able to check to see if > there is a source setting for configuration data (such as a > database name) and use that to get and put its settings it > would otherwise prompt the user for. [snip long commentary] The issue which most urgently needs dealing with is that of postinst (etc.) scripts asking questions about the package. There is no standard way of doing it. Most people are using echo, read, and shell scripts. This precludes a nice X-based configuration interface. The first step (before implementing anything looking even remotely like database support) is to get a "debask" tool working. We need to specify an interface, and get it working. There are two ways of doing such a thing. In my opinion, postinst should not directly ask any questions at all. This prevents any later reconfiguration of the package through the same method. The standard seems to be a script /usr/sbin/blahconfig. This "blahconfig" script could look something like the following, very simple, example:- #!/bin/bash export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin OPTIONS="" INIT=0 while getopts :i ARG; do if [ "$ARG" = "i" ]; then OPTIONS="$OPTIONS --no-auto-answer" INIT=1 fi done if [ $INIT = 0 ]; then if debask --dialog --yesno "Do you want to configure <blah> now?"; then exit 0 fi fi OPTIND=1 eval `debask --bash --script-mode $OPTIONS <<SCRIPT_EOF title "<Blah> package configuration" yesno BLAH_ENABLEREMOTE "Enable remote access facilities?" if BLAH_ENABLEREMOTE yesno BLAH_REMOTE_ANON "Enable anonymous access?" SCRIPT_EOF` if [ "$BLAH_ENABLEREMOTE" = "y" ]; then #abc if [ "$BLAH_REMOTE_ANON" = "y" ]; then #xyz ; fi fi ## End of script As you can see, the issue of name space may come up already (BLAH_...). However, other issues can, at this point, be avoided. I have written a simple debask tool (and attached the sources). Its not very clean, but it works with the above script, and it is easily extensible to X. Thanks.
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