On Wed, 1 Jun 2016 17:18:26 +0100 Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson at intel.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 01, 2016 at 10:58:41AM -0500, Jay Rolette wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Wiles, Keith <keith.wiles at intel.com> > > wrote: > > > > > Started from the link below, but did not want to highjack the thread. > > > http://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2016-June/040021.html > > > > > > I was thinking about this problem from a user perspective and command line > > > options are very difficult to manage specifically when you have a large > > > number of options as we have in dpdk. I see all of these options as a type > > > of database of information for the DPDK and the application, because the > > > application command line options are also getting very complex as well. > > > > > > I have been looking at a number of different options here and the > > > direction I was thinking was using a file for the options and > > > configurations with the data in a clean format. It could have been a INI > > > file or JSON or XML, but they all seem to have some problems I do not > > > like. > > > The INI file is too flat and I wanted a hierarchy in the data, the JSON > > > data is similar and XML is just hard to read. I wanted to be able to > > > manage > > > multiple applications and possible system the DPDK/app runs. The problem > > > with the above formats is they are just data and not easy to make > > > decisions > > > about the system and applications at runtime. > > > > > > > INI format is simplest for users to read, but if you really need hierarchy, > > JSON will do that just fine. Not sure what you mean by "JSON data is > > similar"... > > > > > I'd be quite concerned if we start needing lots of hierarchies for > configuration. > > I'd really just like to see ini file format used for this because: > * it's a well understood, simple format > * very easily human readable and editable > * lots of support for it in lots of languages > * hierarchies are possible in it too - just not as easy as in other formats > though. [In a previous life I worked with ini files which had address > hierarchies 6-levels deep in them. It wasn't hard to work with] > * it works well with grep since you must have one value per-line > * it allows comments > * we already have a DPDK library for parsing them > > However, for me the biggest advantage of using something like ini is that it > would force us to keep things simple! Agreed, INI is much easier to deal with than JSON. Also, lets still keep the configuration options to a minimum. And the defaults must still work.
