Re: summary of the previous thread on oaf IIDs (as I remember it)

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Michael Meeks <michael helixcode com> writes:

> Hi Maciej,
> 
> On 19 Nov 2000, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > I can think of a real easy way to implement this, which is to add a
> > starts_with operator to OAF. Then you can do a query like:
> > 
> > "iid.starts_with('OAFIID:gnome_eog_image:')"
> > 
> > Does this sound reasonable?
> 
>         Yes; this sounds reasonable as a half way measure. However, I
> would suggest that we should recommend namespacing the first part of
> the name in this case, otherwise we end up with all the problems of
> naming conflict that you point out. So we would have:
> 
>         "iid.starts_with('OAFIID:GNOME/Eog/ImageFactory')"

I have no problem with a naming scheme like this, although I'd prefer
`_' as the delimiter since things are easier to read that way.

> > I would still prefer that people use the full IID, or, better yet, as
> > Mathieu so eloquently argued, not hardcode IIDs at all
> 
>         IIDs are already hardcoded in both the factory and the oafinfo
> files, thus causing painful duplication and annoyance, but at least
> the starts_with helps to ease the pain for component users rather than
> implementors.

I chatted with Jody about this on IRC and I suggested a program that
would process an oafinfo file and emit a header that had #defines for
all the IIDs defined in it. Does that sound like it would be useful?

 - Maciej