Re: config file formats

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Aug 04, 2011 at 11:43:29AM +0200, Jasper Wallace wrote:
 > > Would anyone object to adopting a convention in which if the first
 > > line of a config file begins with "#@" it identifies the format?
 > > E.g. if we were to deploy a new syslog.conf format this year the first
 > > line of new-format syslogd config would be
 > > 
 > >    #@syslogd 2011
 > > 
 > > or something. Maybe the number should be the netbsd version, and/or
 > > maybe it should have "netbsd" in it.
 > > 
 > > There are a number of legacy formats we should be attempting to move
 > > away from; methods like this make backwards compat work, having a
 > > convention for it is an obvious plus, and I don't know of any existing
 > > such convention suitable for /etc.
 > 
 > Do we have good enough support for extended attributes that they would 
 > work instead?

Maybe, but if so only very recently. And in some ways that would be
the right way to do it. However...

 > (Thinking about it a bit more it might be too much like hard work, when 
 > you change a files format you have to remember to change the attribute 
 > with it, i can see people forgetting and that causing all kinds of 
 > issues).

...yeah.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost