[OpenAFS-devel] Selecting a configuration file format for OpenAFS Services

[Simon Wilkinson]

On 16 May 2009, at 08:48, u+openafsdev-t07O@chalmers.se wrote:
>
>
> I would suggest to rely on a separate program to process a config file
> with the syntax of your choice and produce command line options to  
> give
> to the binaries.

I think this is a really bad approach, as it constrains you to  
exposing every configuration option as a command line option. It may  
be that some configuration options are too complex, or too obscure, to  
exist on the command line.

Having a configuration file, whose options may be overridden by  
command line switches (for commonly used, simple parameters) gives you  
the best of both worlds, IMO.

I'm strongly in favour of using the MIT Kerberos syntax, providing an  
existing parser can be adapted to our needs. I'd be reluctant to see  
us decide to write our own parser, unless someone is prepared to  
guarantee having the effort available to do that work.

Cheers,

Simon.