On 2002.02.18 01:06 Vladimir Dergachev wrote: > > On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, Keith Packard wrote: > > > Around 10 o'clock on Feb 17, Andrew C Aitchison wrote: > > > > <moving a discussion from devel to xpert about XML configuration files> > > > > > Can I at least ask that changing to an XML format config file > > > requires a major version increment, to version 5.0 if it happens now > ? > > > > Sure, any change to the configuration file syntax will need to be well > > advertised and planned far in advance. A transition strategy will be > > needed. > > > > Having just experienced the real horror of a non-standard configuration > > file format, I will argue strongly that XML is a better solution than > any > > custom configuration file format. Even for people editing the file > with > > emacs. > > > > ... > > I am very strongly against XML configuration files.. XML is really rather > poor for hand editing so it is best written by another program. If you > are > going to have another program write the file anyway you can just as well > use the current syntax, it is no worse.
Most people write XHTML, DocBook XML and other XML DTDs by hand without any difficulties. XML can be a little too verbose, but in a configuration file, that's hardly noticed. > > ... > > > > It's not that the current syntax is bad, it's just different from > > everything else, as any custom configuration file sytax is. Moving to > XML > > solves this problem -- the syntax is now regularized so questions about > > quoting and such won't occur. > > And plenty of other questions will occur. XML is a widely used standard. It's much more likely that one has seen an XML before on its life than an XF86Config file. This mean is easier to learn by repetition. > > > > > Automated tools are another problem; with the current syntax, comments > > inserted by the user will probably be lost when the file is read and > > rewritten by an external configuration tool. This means that you can > > I say that's a poorly written configuration program, I do not see it as > too hard to retain the comments. > It's poorly written allright, but why spend time reinventing the weel, coding data structures for holding the comments, sections, options, unknown options, etc.? > > either edit the file only by hand, or only with a GUI tool. Libxml > > preserves comments and formatting so that reading/writing the > > configuration file won't make it impossible to edit the file in the > future > > with a text editor. > > > > Finally, using XML means that external tools needn't worry about > additions > > to the configuration file syntax or contents -- the file is always > > parsable, and the configuration tool can simply ignore portions it > doesn't > > understand without any question of whether the remaining portions of > the > > file will be misunderstood. > > Do you really want a tool that does not understand complete syntax of the > configuration file (let alone semantics) messing with Xserver > configuration ? > The are lot of scenarios were one would want that. Why should a tool for configurating the desktop size and depth worry about the Z axis mapping of the mouse? > ... > > If there _is_ a need for extending configuration file (despite the fact > that the trend was to reduce its size and contents) may I humbly suggest > something line based ? And if you really want to make a monster of it, > why > not tie XFree86 into Tcl and make XF86Config a Tcl script ? This would > allow for a number of fancy things like, for example, autodetecting > configuration at startup without mess of C code. > > Vladimir Dergachev > Instead of making the XF86config a monster every configuration tool would had to be a even bigger monster.. Anyway, due to XML easy syntax there are very tiny XML parsers available, so this is not even an issue. For what is worth, I just want to say that IMHO the advantages of using XML heavily outweight its disadvantages. Regards, José Fonseca _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
