[Opensim-users] opensim config files

[Justin Clark-Casey]

The ability to allow for complex use cases certainly needs to be preserved.  But I believe that this can co-exist with 
simplifying the default configuration - I think that the more complex the initial configuration the more likely it is to 
discourage potential community members and contributors.

It's not strictly true that all module config is independent - many modules look for the StorageProvider setting in the 
[DatabaseService] section.

Possibly one might be able to use $servicehost or $hgaddress in configuration and replace this with a value defined 
elsewhere.  This isn't completely dissimilar from the ability to use env vars in region config that Dahlia implemented 
way back in 2009, though the value would come from config rather than an env var.

However, I'm not aware of any imminent plans to do this.  As other people have said, the workaround right now is to do a 
whole string search and replace on a config file though I don't think this is the best solution one could possibly have.

On 14/05/12 06:41, Serendipity Seraph wrote:
> Perhaps but I don't think entering my domain name five or six times when enabling HG is a good example.  :P
>
> What is simple should be simple and more complex things should be possible, right?  The common cases should be easy.  If the facility existed to refer to the equivalent of a variable in settings values then it could be plugged in by default and special cases could be handled by changing that common usage default to be common where needed.  I don't see how it is an either-or.
>
> - seren
>
>
> On May 13, 2012, at 4:44 PM, Melanie wrote:
>
>> There are valid cases where different services should use different
>> modules, paths or addresses for the same thing. Combining those
>> settings would block and disable a number of valid applications and
>> make running a very large grid rather difficult. The configuration
>> complexity allows unusual, experimental or special configurations
>> that are needed in a number of cases. The ability to do this is by
>> design and the more complicated configuration in the simple cases
>> has been accepted as the price we pay to enable the more complex cases.
>>
>> Melanie
>>
>> On 14/05/2012 00:17, Serendipity Seraph wrote:
>>> As opposed to what?  Well, to anything that doesn't require repeating the same value multiple times.  I don't know what that is but there has to be some such thing.    This form of config is cross platform and all if you have a parser for it (ConfigParser in python for instance) but it is being used to configure a C# application.   You could do it with the config layout as is  if that which parsed it used a standard way of referring to some other config variable value.  I can write something to automate this stuff for myself but I  wanted to know if there is anything afoot in this direction already.
>>>
>>> - seren
>>>
>>> On May 13, 2012, at 8:58 AM, Melanie wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> On 13/05/2012 10:36, Serendipity Seraph wrote:
>>>>> Is there some way to get closer to obeying the DRY (don't repeat yourself) principle in the config files?  I see the same information (e.g. internet address) repeated over and over again.  This is a real pain when you need to change something and it is not at all obvious whether some of the repeats mean something different and should not be changed.    I guess it is a property of the old-school config file format.  But whatever, it makes configuration and especially changes to same messy and error-prone.  Any good way to help it?
>>>>
>>>> Old school, as opposed to what?
>>>>
>>>> Melanie
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-- 
Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
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