Re: inetd enhancements - config syntax

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sun, 31 Jan 2021 18:12:21 +0000
    From:        David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <YBbzBa5KvSQgtdB7%netbsd.org@localhost>


  | Basically what you want is to read only files matching some glob that
  | matches the POLA reasonably well, like "*.conf".

No, what I want is for it to read the files that are there, whatever
they are called.   If I don't want them read, I don't install them in
the config directory.   This is not new, it is what happens in rc.d
for example (though that one doesn't recurse - I am less certain that
descending into sub-dirs automatically is the right thing).

  | The reason to have a suffix and only read files with that suffix is
  | that there are lots of ways to get extra files in the directory that
  | the user didn't mean for you to read,

But without reading the mind of the user, the system cannot know one
way or the other what was meant to be read.

  | This doesn't just mean foo.conf~ files left behind by emacs, but also
  | files like foo.conv,v, directories named RCS, and things like that. :-p

Those should not be in the config directory.   RCS files and similar belong
in the source directory (alongside all the config files, examples, samples,
and other noise which are not being used).   Only what is intended to be
used should be installed.   If you suffer from an editor that insists on
leaving around turds like foo.conf~ then don't edit files in the config
directory, instead copy them out, edit, and copy back.   Better, edit in
the source directory, test, and then install.

  | Without the suffix filtering you just can't have a directory named RCS
  | in there.

Nor should you have.   Though if auto sub-dir traversal is not part of
the spec, then you could, regardless of its name, as directories, just
like special files, fifos, sockets, etc, would all be ignored.

  | Alternatively you could put the glob in the include explicitly
  | (that is, "include dir/*.conf"

That would not be unreasonable, though it is more work to implement.

But if that's done then
	include dir
should be equivalent to
	include dir/*

  | I don't think you want to include a whole subtree recursively.

Maybe, maybe not.

  | I can't think of any tool that does that by default,

tar?

kre