CFG config management (/etc etc.)

[p.carsten at arcor.de]

Hello xdg-list,

This is a proposal for a config file handling framework.
Config4gnu or CFG for short is unlike the config "tools" existing today.

The system is designed so that just by providing a meta-configuration file an application's configuration is fully supported by all CFG frontends.  Providing easy configuration in all UIs, scripts or programs. In the future these definiton files can be maintained within the different software packages so that its central configuration is instantly availabe upon installation.

So far CFG provides a unified configuration API for all kinds of config files on a single machine. Frontends for WWW, GTK, comand line (scripts) or programms using the config4gnu API directly all see the same "configuration tree". Config4Gnu provides logic/consistency checking, activation of changes, "configuration wizards" and more. But at all times only the config files under /etc are authoritative and are still fully hand editable including the comments.

The CFG parsers (backends) understand the syntax based on the config-file definition and dynamicly generate a xml representation of it. If a logic-definition is also available the middlelayer knows wich settings are common with other packages, which help texts are relevant, how to activate changes, etc. and about wizard and test logics.


CFG is not limiting the personal choice of configuration file style for a programer, yet he has all the fancy stuff at hands easily. He could even use the Config4Gnu system directliy to parse and generate the configuration files for his application.

According to the two main developers the system is fully functional and can edit many config formats.  It supports samba nearly fully. But it is not ready for public use yet. For example some dependencies need to be cleared.

Before the project started last year there had been an introductory article and discussion about it on freshmeat.
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/565/

To find out more about CFG visit 
http://config4gnu.sourceforge.net and look into our mailachives. Unlike the website states there has also been a tarball released.

-Peter