Craig, I did look at the code and I think I understand how it works. Save works by looking at 'getters' and generating the xml file. Sort of 'java bean xml persistence'.
The generated file will have far more information that it needs ( there is no way to distinguish the 'defaults' ), it requires getters ( that wouldn't be a problem, but I wouldn't bet all components have them ), it doesn't distinguish between getters that refer to config and status ( i.e. runtime properties ), etc. And the biggest problem - I don't think this model can scale, or is flexible enough for the long term. I'm -1 on this - unless it is agreed and made clear this is just a temporary solution. > I'm not sure that having the config data represented as a DOM tree (or a > tree of JavaBeans, or any such structure) really helps decoupling all that > much. On the way in (i.e. as Tomcat starts up), there still needs to be > some logic that understands what components must be instantiated, and What's important is to have a layer between the config data ( including format, etc ) and the actual objects, and have all MBean setters go through this config layer. This is ( AFAIK - after spending a lot of time on this ) the only solution I could find. This will allow saving the options changed by the user ( not every getFoo() ), more flexibility in when is the config saved, preserve the structure ( including even comments ) of the XML file, etc. The way the config is read doesn't change - you can still generate the SAX events to drive the XMLMapper ( or just replace XmlMapper with walking the config and doing the calls explicitely )., In general, I believe long term we should move toward a solution based on Preferences ( or JNDI ), with XML used as an import/export format ( or for simple standalone configurations ), ( of course, Preferences are JDK1.4 only - and we'll need a wrapper that works in lower versions, like commons-logging. ) Again, this can be done post 4.1 ( and post 3.3.2 ). Costin -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
