[Libreoffice] LibreOffice config migration

Cor Nouws cno at nouenoff.nl
Fri Oct 15 13:39:03 PDT 2010


Hi Michael,

Michael Meeks wrote (15-10-10 17:21)

>
> 	So - here is my suggestion ;-) hopefully it annoys everybody, and it is
> two-fold.
>
> 	1. we trawl for broken configuration settings in the code,
> 	   and work to harden the code against bad configurations so
> 	   it at least does not crash.
> 		+ perhaps we could add an EasyHack to do some fuzzing
> 		  of the new XML config stuff as a start.

 From what I remember from the past years, config changed both in files 
and in content few times.
Thus different people dragging their config with them from 1.x over 2.x, 
3.x to 3.3 (that introduces a whole new config structure) can have a 
very wide mixed structure.
A tough thing to tackle, I guess.

> 	2. we continue to do automatic config migration since this is
> 	   a commonly desired use-case
> 	*but*

ok

> 	   as we migrate the settings the first time, we write into the
> 	   (original - ie. the old version)'s directory a stamp file
> 	   that says "these have been imported"

ok

> 	*and*
> 	   if the same version is run again with the new settings
> 	   directory removed (ie. someting went wrong);

and the user has been advised to remove/rename the user config tree..

> 	   we prompt the user on the second time:
> 		"do you want to (re-)import settings from ABC install"

which can be done because the old config tree is still hanging around, I 
guess.
(Then what is the use of stamping the imported old dirs?)

> 	How does that sound as a compromise ? that way - hopefully we test the
> migration code some more (although I agree this piece is hard to QA),
> and we avoid annoying our users with dialogs on updates.
>
> 	However - if the user does a migration and discovers their LibreOffice
> is really broken: they are -no worse off- than they would have been
> before had they selected the 'migrate' option: ie. they need to go and
> remove their settings directory. Next time they run - they will get
> prompted.
>
> 	How does that sound ? or am I missing some requirements /
> problems ? :-)

Not bad, but pls see the questions and the remark above.

Regards,
Cor


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