Re: oaf patch for bug 1703

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Elliot Lee <sopwith@redhat.com> writes:

> On 19 Jul 2000, Mathieu Lacage wrote:
> 
> > > That's more or less what I had in mind (except I wouldn't call the two
> > > types "standard" and "gnome"; I'd call them perhaps "oaf path" and
> > > "prefix path").
> > 
> > using the config file to specify which env vars to use seems 
> > overkill to me but if that is what eliot believes to be the
> > right way(tm), let it be so.
> 
> I don't think any additional env vars beyond OAF_INFO_PATH are needed -
> again, if OAF_INFO_PATH needs to be set, it can set by another entity
> (e.g. something that looks at $GNOME_PATH).

This might mean you would potentially have to set a bunch of
environment variables to relocate an install properly. I think that
would be a bad precedent. Thinking about it more, I think oaf should
just respect GNOME_PATH; perhaps the config file could allow turning
this behavior off. I really don't think it's a big deal though.

> My main concern is with the use of XML for the config file - this is going
> to butt heads with the post-install scripts of packages (which typically
> are able to use regular shell commands for editing /etc/ld.so.conf). You
> can make the config file be a plain text file, or write a utility to allow
> easily modifying the config file. I would prefer both, but either of the
> alternatives will do the trick.

I was going to suggest a plain text file, but in retrospect, XML seems
better.

I think the current format is just as editable with shell commands as
the /etc/ld.so format (the main difference being that you can't just
append lines to the end, you have to insert them in the middle.

 - Maciej