[Dune] ConfigParser

[Jö Fahlke]

Am Mon,  7. Jun 2010, 13:58:44 +0200 schrieb sander at dune-project.org:
> The usage and implementation is the one from the ConfigParser class.
> We may want to discuss whether there are better designs/implementations
> for this.

Well, here are some features I would like to see in a future version of
ConfigParser/ParameterTree:

 * Ability to delete values/keys/subtrees.

 * Multiple values per key.

 * A way to combine two ParameterTrees.  This is tricky in combination with
   multiple values per key -- we need a way to specify whether a particular
   key add its values to the ones already present or overwrites them.

 * Command line parser needs some improvements:

   - Currently something like "-foo 1 2" results in the key "foo" having the
     value "2".  Instead the key "foo" should have value "1" and the "2"
     should be left alone.

   - "-option=value" syntax.

   - Remove the recognized options from the command line.  This should leave
     other arguments which the program may then treat as files to process or
     whatever it likes.

   - Boolean options instead of "-help 1" just say "-help".  Or, even better,
     with the "-option=value" syntax allow these: "-option" or "-option=yes"
     to set a boolean value true and "-no-option" or "-option=no" to set a
     boolean value false.

 * Some of the stuff above can be addresse by having a scheme for the
   supported options: Some data structure which lists for each supported
   option whether it is multi-valued, boolean, integer.

   - The scheme may also include a help text and possibly a default value.

   - The scheme may group options such that they are overwritten together when
     combining two parameter trees.  For instance, if ParameterTree1 contains
     values for "epsilon" and "mu" and ParameterTree2 contains values for
     "epsilon" and "c" and the keys "epsilon", "mu", and "c" form a group,
     then the resulting ParameterTree should not contain a key "mu".

Most of these ideas a rather vague, some are a lot of work and may not be
feasible, but I guess it's a starting point for a discussion.

Thanks,
Jö.

-- 
A mathematician is a device to turn coffee into theorems.
-- Paul Erdös
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