Re: [Config4gnu-developer] real "flatfile" parser/unparser

[Gregory R. T. S. <gs...@ri...>]

> Greg-
>
> The files have been committed. Here is some feedback :)

Thanks!  I appreciate the feedback.

> 1. The following:
>      else {
>           die $line;
>      }
>    has to go. If a line does not match one of the patterns it should somehow
> be preserved in the XML file. Otherwise, when the file is rewritten, that
> data (valid or not) is lost. Perhaps you could use a comment tag, since you
> preserve the '#' in comments.

Agreed.  Perhaps we could put it in a comment and add a comment on the
line before indicating that the parser didn't know what to do with this
line?

> 2. Can we put all the parameters into one big section? Since all the data in
> a "flatfile" is for one purpose, I think it makes sense to group it
> together. Instead of incrementing section numbers we could increment
> parameter numbers. Or the parameters could all have the same name, since
> they all are used the same way.

Yeah, that makes more sense, but I wasn't sure if the core layer had
support for this.  Having the parameters all have the same name makes the
most sense to me.

> 4. This hasn't been done for the other parsers, but I think it'd be nice to
> have an area at the top of each parser to explain the file format that it
> works with. Something like
>
>   Handles files that contain one or more values. Each value exists on a line
> by itself. Blank lines and lines beginning with '#' are ignored by the
> application.

This is a good idea, and I'd be happy to do it.  Should I continue to
email patches to the list or should I commit them in CVS?

> Thanks for contributing and I hope to hear more from you!

Thanks!

> Jason Long

-Greg

--
Gregory Stoll
gs...@ri...
"The story you are about to see is a fib, but it's short"
- Mathnet, "Square One"