Re: [Evolution] Issue with formatting of gconf files.

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 15:04 -0800, les wrote:
> With that said, here is a snippet from the gconf stuff for evolution:
>
> Directly from the file:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <group uid="1162801071 10728 17 localhost localdomain" name="On This
> Computer" base_uri="local:" readonly="no"><source
> uid="1162801071 10728 18 localhost localdomain" name="Personal"
> uri="file:///home/lesh/.evolution/addressbook/local/system"
> relative_uri="system"><properties><property name="pilot-sync"
> value="true"/><property name="use-in-contacts-calendar"
> value="0"/></properties></source><source
> uid="1163129951 18548 0 localhost localdomain" name="Personal2"
> relative_uri="1163129951 18548 0 localhost localdomain"><properties><property name="completion" 
> value="true"/><property name="remember_password" value="false"/></properties></source></group>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> How many of you can read and understand this bit of code?
>
> I especially dislike the ########## ##### # localhost localdomain
> filename.  This has no significance to the job being accomplished.  As
> much as I rail against "self documenting code", this is just beyond
> useless.  It smacks of trying to use obfuscation for security, which
> has
> been proven over and over to not aid security.  Other than that it has
> no value, no significance and adds no real value to the process being
> described.

Two points here:

1) You seem to think that because this is in text form, it's supposed to
be read by humans. AFAIK it's not. The format is XML as a convenience to
make it portable and easy to parse by machine. The visual layout is
irrelevant (and can be generated by a pretty-printer if it's ever
needed).

2) The ########## ##### # localhost localdomain stuff is not meant for
obfuscated "security", but as a way of generating a unique ID (not a
filename as you state). You don't say where this snippet comes from so
it's hard to say, but it looks very similar to the Message-ID header
found in mail messages.

poc