Re: Need 'UncommentAndSetValue' or some such

[Brian C. Hill]

        I tend to agree. Cannonical edit directives are concise and
clean (pretty, even?), but they will only take you so far. I mark up
all of my config files (resolv.conf, ntp.conf, automount configs,
/etc/system, syslog.conf, etc.) with m4. xml might be a better choice
in the long run, but m4 has worked well for me across a large number of
systems with different subnets, domains, roles, timezones, etc..

        I am using cfe to replace rdist now, making heavy use of
copy:/shellcommands:. I am considering using some of the cfe mount and
resolver functionality to replace what I am doing (which will obsolete
the m4 files for those), but that's just a couple of pieces.

        Is anyone else using a markup language to 'templatize' their
config files? This is slightly off-topic - probably better to reply to
me directly.

Brian
======================================================================
On Tue, Oct 25, 2005 at 11:03:59AM -0500, Adams, Russell L. wrote:
> Thats what m4 is for.
> 
> Russell
> 
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2005 at 10:03:32AM -0400, David Scott Coburn wrote:
> > 
> > In many of my cfagent script I have constructs like this:
> > 
> > editfiles:
> > 
> >         { /etc/postfix/main.cf
> >             BeginGroupIfNoSuchLine "mydestination = $(host), $(fqhost), 
> > localhost"
> >                 DeleteLinesMatching "^mydestination.*"
> >                 Append "mydestination = $(host), $(fqhost), localhost"
> >             EndGroup
> >             BeginGroupIfNoSuchLine "mydomain = $(domain)"
> >                 DeleteLinesMatching "^mydomain.*"
> >                 Append "mydomain = $(domain)"
> >             EndGroup
> >             DefineClasses "restart_postfix"
> >         }
> > 
> > The bit that bugs me the most about this construct is the repetition
> > of the text I am searching for and the text to replace it with.
> > 
> > What would be nifty would be something like this:
> > 
> > editfiles:
> > 
> >         { /etc/postfix/main.cf
> >             UncommentAndSetValue "mydestination ="  "$(host), $(fqhost), 
> > localhost"
> >             UncommentAndSetValue "mydomain =" "$(domain)"
> >             DefineClasses "restart_postfix"
> >         }
> > 
> > The first argument would be the variable that get its value changed,
> > and the second argument would be what it gets set to.
> > 
> > If the value was already set then nothing would happen.  If a variable was
> > changed then the DefineClass would happen.  If the variable was commented 
> > out
> > then it would be uncommented and set to the given value.
> > 
> > It seems like this kind of setting of variables in config files to some
> > value is half of what I use cfengine for and this would be a whole lot
> > easier to set up and then maintain.
> > 
> > Perhaps there is already a better way to do it that I have not found in
> > the manual yet?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Scott
> > 
> > -- 
> > * David Scott Coburn
> > * Brookhaven National Laboratory
> > * scott@bnl.gov 631.344.7110
> > * "Assume a spherical cow of uniform density..."
> > _______________________________________________
> > Help-cfengine mailing list
> > Help-cfengine@gnu.org
> > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Help-cfengine mailing list
> Help-cfengine@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine

-- 
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  / Brian C. Hill       bchill@bch.net          http://brian.bch.net    \
  | UNIX Specialist     BCH Technical Services  http://www.bch.net      |