Re: XML as a standard UNIX config file format (Re: Caldera installation - something Debian should learn)
On Fri, April 23 1999, Bear Giles <bear@coyotesong.com> wrote:
|> Robin Stephenson wrote:
|> >The disadvantage, of course, is that *every* program would have to be
|> >ported to use XML as its config file format.
|>
|> This is a disadvantage? I say let's dig in :)
|>
|> UNIX *badly* needs a common config file format, and we might as well start
|> now.
|
|After reading the same Linux World article :-) I realized that the
|conversion could be easily done in three steps:
|
|1) write tools to convert the existing files into XML format.
|
|2) write tools to convert the XML format back into existing format.
|
| (at this point system configuration tools would use the XML format)
|
|3) modify existing services to use XML format as an alternative to
| the historical formats.
That's exactly the idea I've tried to push here a couple of months ago.
|I have a program that will spin /etc/passwd, shadow, group, ftpusers,
|fstab, inetd.conf, network, hostname, and a couple other files into an
|XML file, as a proof-of-concept of the idea. The experience definitely
|opened my eyes; I have no doubt that we *will* see XML replace the
|existing formats.
For what seems to be XML tools with great potential, look at:
An (validating?) XML editor: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xeena
There used to be also an DTD editor, but I can't find it now.
Cheers,
--Amos
--Amos Shapira | "Of course Australia was marked for
133 Shlomo Ben-Yosef st. | glory, for its people had been chosen
Jerusalem 93 805 | by the finest judges in England."
ISRAEL amos@gezernet.co.il | -- Anonymous
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