Re: config file formats

[Marc Balmer <mbalmer%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Am 19.07.11 18:33, schrieb David Holland:
> 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.

I just have a technical comment:

I guess this assumes that lines starting with '#' are considered
comments, but that is not true in all cases.

E.g. I have some config files that are actually Lua programs, and there
a comment is '--' (like in SQL) and other formats, like BIND zone files
use a semicolon.

Maybe the format specifier should appear somewehre on the first line,
then a construct like

-- #@syslogd 2012

would work as well.

> 
> 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.