From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Mar 12 15:17:29 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from ninsei.com (24.64.9.93.ab.wave.home.com [24.64.9.93]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id E0F90153CD for ; Fri, 12 Mar 1999 15:17:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dreamer@freelow.ninsei.com) Received: (qmail 20416 invoked by uid 1001); 12 Mar 1999 23:17:08 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 12 Mar 1999 23:17:08 -0000 Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 16:17:08 -0700 (MST) From: Steven Young To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: visual config editor In-Reply-To: <24926.921279593@zippy.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > Hm, well now. The help text would be pretty easy to put in the LINT > > file - probably something simple like just putting a comment block above > > each option, and that will be imported as the help text. However, as > > I think the comment block should contain some sort of standardized > "record" of not just help text, but possible values for certain fields > (or information which denotes that they're display-only, or whatever). Hm.. well, my DESC file format isn't really appropriate for use in the LINT file, as it uses up a lot of vertical space. How about: # help-text: This is the AT keyboard controller. It's great! You really # +want to include this option. # changeable-options: irq device atkbd0 at isa? tty irq 1 The possible fields might be: help-text (obvious) required-args (a list of arguments that are required, in case they aren't in the device line for whatever reason) possible-args (a list of arguments that can be in the device line, but aren't necessary) unchangeable-required-args (a list of arguments that are required, and cannot have their values changed) unchangeable-possible-args (a list of arguments that are not required, and cannot have their values changed) requires (a list of other devices/controllers/etc this option needs to function - planned, but not planned for implementation in v1) Or perhaps something a bit less verbose, but you get the idea. In addition, any arguments that are present in the LINT device line, but not mentioned explicitly in the comment block above, are assumed to be required-changeable (ie, required-args), saving a bit of typing on the part of the comment writer. Does this sound sane? Now that I actually read what I've written, it seems kind of whacky, but I'm not sure of any really "easy" ways to represent the information that needs to be represented in a manner that is simple for a program to parse. Steve. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message