| > Re: versioning, you can dump the registry in text format with regedit /e and save it to a text file. The idea of diffing a registry dump fills my heart with horror. > First, all config formats are different - from the bizarre (Sendmail) to fairly sensible (Apache), but each one requires separate tools/scripts. I am quite happy editing them with vi or emacs (when available). I also like joe a lot - it reminds me of WordStar. > you need to learn the syntax and then write a complete program to parse the files. In about 10 years of Unix, I never had to build anything like this. And, when I wanted to parse my own config files, I always had libraries to do it ready. > For example, you need somewhat of a state machine to parse/edit Apache VirtualHost directives. You need to write a complete editor from scratch each time. I think you may be approaching the problem from the wrong angle. Are you trying to build a GUI tool to edit Apache configuration files? |
Sure, so am I (well except for Sendmail configs). We were talking about programmatically editing here.
"And, when I wanted to parse my own config files, I always had libraries to do it ready."
Really? How do you, in bash, write a script to change, or if necessary add, an 'IndexAllowed' directive to a certain specific VirtualHost? Mind you, Apache config files can Include other files (and many distros ship with default config files that use this).
"Are you trying to build a GUI tool to edit Apache configuration files?"
I'm not building anything, I was just using this as an example of things you'd want to script, for example in the context of a web hosting provider who wants to automate the creation of new customer setups. (Yes I realize that there are many way to attack this specific problem, but most of them are very specific to Apache and would have to be re-engineered for each problem)