Re: PROPOSAL: init file actions (draft 2)

[Daniel Quinlan <quinlan@transmeta.com>]

Erik Troan <ewt@redhat.com> writes:

> I think it would be better for init scripts to call functions which
> describe what's happening, rather then forcing other bits of init to
> parse (somewhat) arbitrary text output. This would have the side
> affect of making init scripts i18n w/o forcing the writer to do any
> extra work.

That might work well, except this conflicts with the removal of the
requirement that init files be scripts.  If init files aren't
guaranteed to be scripts, then we need separate executable programs
instead of shell functions.

(I would still like to specify that init files be /bin/sh shell
scripts.  I can't recall seeing an init file that wasn't a script, and
I like giving sysadmins that a little extra bit of flexibility.)

- Dan