On Fri, 9 Dec 1994, Luke Mewburn wrote:

> > Note that i'm not strictly against a "switch" type thing which
> > controlled loading of lookup methods.  however, that wasn't what the
> > proposal was suggesting (at least, so said my reading of the
> > proposal...  8-).
> 
> Maybe I didn't make myself clear in my `idea bounce'. I basically want
> a defined way of:
> 	a) specifying lookup order, and ensuring that the order asked
> 	   for is what you get. (I.e, if you ask for bind then files,
> 	   it works that way)
> 	b) integrating it in such a way that adding extra support
> 	   (e.g., hesiod support) doesn't require major hacking of
> 	   libc functions each time; just addition of possibly an
> 	   extra library or functions to libc (a'la rpc)
> 	c) defaulting back to using `files' if the switch file is
> 	   missing/corrupt
> 	d) (if possible) controllable in a way that's `standard'
> 	   (e.g, svc.conf or nsswitch.conf)
> 

I like the idea of adding and svc.conf, IMHO one of the few redeeming 
features of Ultrix.  I want to put in a request to make the search order 
settable on a file-by-file basis (like Ultrix) and also expandable so if 
you want to distribute a new set of files you can add it to svc.conf (or 
whatever) and select your method of distribution.

Eduardo