Re: proplib changes

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 09:14:10PM +0200, Jachym Holecek
wrote:
> In that case I'd prefer not to add the function, at
least until there's
> real demand for it. Userland version of proplib can
pick default codec
> for _externalize() calls based on an environment
variable (except where
> plists are passed to kernel) so that the user can
enforce his choice
> of favorite format.

Why would a user want to force his "favorite"
format? I can see the point
where an application registers and uses it's own format, but
not a user
changing it via environment variables.


Martin

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Martin Husemann wrote:
> Why would a user want to force his "favorite"
format? I can see the
> point where an application registers and uses it's own
format, but not
> a user changing it via environment variables.

Applications are unlikely to care; they probably use the
proplib API
to set and get values.  However, people who edit proplib
files (or who
worry that they might sometimes have to edit proplib files)
might very
well want to edit in a different format.

If the hand-editing problem is addressed by arranging for
proplib to
save in the user's preferred format, then the sysadmin will
probably
want to set a system-wide preferred format (e.g. via
sysctl), and
unprivileged users may want to override that per application
(e.g. via
an environment variable).

Another way of addressing the hand-editing problem wold be
to have an
editor wrapper (e.g. "viproplib") that converts
back and forth between
proplib's preferred format and the user's preferred format.

--apb (Alan Barrett)