RE: [Rest2web-develop] Misc fixes, and a last request

[Michael F. <mi...@pc...>]

Hello Nicola,

My friend has said he will setup the unixshell account for us - but no details yet.

-----Original Message-----
   >From: "Nicola Larosa"<ni...@te...>
   >Sent: 14/08/05 19:42:22
[snip..]

All your work/fixes sound very good.

   >The last request
   >----------------
   >
   >Really the last, I promise. O:-)
   >
   >It's about required values, and required sections.
   >
   >Currently, if a scalar has no default in the configspec, it must be
   >specified in the config, therefore in the end every scalar has a value. But
   >I need optional values, with no default, and possibly not specified in the
   >config, so that they may effectively be missing from the config obj.
   >
   >We could decide that when a scalar is defined with "default = None", then
   >it means that it's required, otherwise it may be altogether absent from the
   >config. In that case, the default would be for all values not to be
   >required: the opposite would have to be explicitly specified.
   >

This is exactly the *opposite* of the way configspecs currently work. If no default is specified the value must be specified.

My normal use case is that defaults are not specified and values are not optional.

*Also* - None is a possible value to pass to default. 

Possible alternatives :

1) How about a new ``optional`` keyword ? I would have it default to False - but you could override this with a new option ?

2) We could create a new value for ``default`` - say ``Force`` - meaning the value is optional ?

3) You could always do it yourself programatically of course - use  '__OPTIONAL__'  as your default value and then delete all members that have this value..... It may need a slight alteration to 'walk' (you couldn't delete members of a section whilst iterating over it - have to iterate over a copy of the keys).

4) Hmmm... What about an ``__optional_scalars__`` list of keys for a section ?


I don't like the 'default is keys are optional' solution - it seems to me to reverse the primary rationale of configspecs. Also - it makes writing quick and simple configspecs more painful.

Adding an extra keyword is clumsy - but making it impossible to have None as a default value doesn't seem good either. I favour options 3 or 4.
  
   >A similar issue is the requiredness of sections: I need to be able to omit
   >entire sections from the config, and this is currently not possible.

An __optional__ scalar value in the configspec ? (true or false)

You could even combine with __optional_scalars__ - and just make __optional__ a list thatan include sections and scalars. Then only one more magic value is needed.  

   >A related issue would be specifying the min and max number of subsections in
   >__many__ sections.
   >

__min__ and __max__ magic scalars in __many__ sections ?

   >All the rest works, the requiredness issue should be all that's missing for
   >my use case. What about it? :-)
   >

LOL
Hmmm.... Who's gonna implement all this ? You're pretty familiar with the code now Nicola ;-p

Best Regards, 

Fuzzyman 
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python 

   >-- 
   >Nicola Larosa - ni...@te...
   >
   >Does it seem like I'm looking for an answer
   >To a question I can't ask
   > -- Norah Jones, Nightingale, Come Away with Me, 2001
   >
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