A draft for a standard for desktop configuration

[Jamie McCracken]

Philip Van Hoof wrote:
> 
> I'm open for suggestions.
> 
> - The type element should be reusable (cascading/externalRef?) between
> schemes 

I would be very careful here - any type cock up would seriously 
compromise the config system. Consider two schemae that redefine a type 
"my_type_format" to two different formats, which one do you use?

Generally it would be safer to define some static aliases (like the list 
of types Waldo gave you) and not allow user definable types to be 
aliased at all. (of course if you can find a way to make user definable 
aliases unique and safe then that would be cool)

[snip]
 > typedef struct {
 >
 >   int my_num;
 >   char *my_str;
 >   double my_double;
 >   int *my_bools;
 >
 > } my_special_one;
 >
 > This one would become a non-homogeneous list that embeds a integer, a
 > string a double and a list with doubles. Like this:
 >
 > <type wire="ai" alias="my_special_one" real="list"
 > format="non-homogeneous">

This looks wrong - they dbus type cannot be "ai" here - it should be 
"(isdab)"

 >   <list>
 > <type wire="i" alias="my_num" real="simple" format="integer"/>
 > <type wire="s" alias="my_str" real="simple" format="string"/>
 > <type wire="d" alias="my_double" real="simple" format="double"/>
 > <type wire="ab" alias="" real="list" format="boolean"/>

we should not allow arrays to be embedded into structs! If you do you 
wont know how to de/serialize it from/to a comma seperated string stored 
in a DB or inifile (this is true if the array of booleans was in the 
middle of the struct).

If we have an alias in the type declaration why do we need the other 
fields (wire, real, format)?

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of it as the alias should define all 
that info elsewhere in the schema.


-- 
Mr Jamie McCracken
http://www.advogato.org/person/jamiemcc/