Re: RFC: new network config (was: Re: network configuration)
On Fri, Feb 05, 1999 at 11:28:44PM +0100, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> According to Craig Sanders:
> > On Fri, Feb 05, 1999 at 12:16:52PM +0100, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> >
> > > Config files with fixed fields are evil. Really evil.
> >
> > sometimes they're the best way of doing something. they're certainly a
> > lot easier and faster to parse in a sh script than anything else.
>
> Yes. But in the software I used and/or wrote, it _always_ happens that
> you want to include a new field, change the meaning of an existing
> field, etc. Then you are stuck.
did you see the second colon-delimited format i suggested?
three fixed fields (ip, domain, username) followed by a comma-delimited
"flags" field.
IP:domain:username:flag1,flag2,flag3,...
there's no reason why that couldn't include lines like:
IP:domain:username:flag1,flag2,flag3=foo.bar,flag4
this is both easy and fast to parse, and extensible. scripts which read
the file just ignore any fields or flags that they don't need.
> It really comes down to the difference between quick, dirty and easy
> and "the right thing" (TM).
often true...but sometimes quick and dirty isn't the Wrong Thing.
craig
--
craig sanders
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