xml config files haben etwas ungutes an sich.. die lesbarkeit als plain text.
tja, da bist du einer der wenigen die nicht einsehen welche vorteile human readable files besitzen, im besondern bezug auf config files. ich empfehle zwecks besseren verständnis die geschichte von UNIX nachzulesen, wo human readable files ein _fundamentales_ konzept bilden.
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Important Advantages
Plain text offers some important advantages over other ways of storing and manipulating data. They revolve around the fact that it is the most flexible and portable format for data. That is, everything can be done with plain text that could be done with any binary format, and some things can be done with plain text that cannot easily (if at all) be done with some binary formats. This is because plain text is supported by nearly every application program on every operating system and on every type of processor and allows information to be manipulated (including, searching, sorting and updating) both manually and programmatically using virtually every text processing tool in existence.
This flexibility and portability make plain text the best format for storing data persistently (i.e., for years, decades, or even millennia). That is, plain text provides insurance against the obsolescence of any application programs that are needed to create, read, modify and extend data. Human-readable forms of data (including data in self-describing formats such as HTML and XML) will most likely survive longer than all other forms of data and the application programs that created them. In other words, as long as the data itself survives, it will be possible to use it even if the original application programs have long since vanished.
For example, it is very easy to read a data file from a legacy system (i.e., an antiquated program or operating system) or convert it to some other format even if there is little or no information about the original program that was used to create it, if that data file is written in plain text. If it is written in some binary format, such as by a proprietary (i.e., commercial) word processor or spreadsheet program, it might be very difficult or impossible to read or use it.
Plain text is not necessarily unstructured text. Programming languages as well as SGML (standard generalized markup language) and its modern descendants, most notably HTML (hypertext markup language) and XML (extensible markup language), are examples of plain text formats that have well-defined structures. These formats have the important advantage of making plain text easier for computers to read, reorganize and modify while keeping it relatively readable by humans.
Plain Text and the Unix Philosophy
The use of plain text is an important part of the Unix philosophy, and thus of the Linux philosophy (which incorporates the Unix philosophy). Consequently, in contrast to other types of operating systems, Linux and other Unix-like operating systems attempt to use plain text as much as possible and to minimize the use of binary code.
For example, programs are designed to produce plain text output to the extent practical. An obvious example of a type of program whose primary output cannot be plain text is a compiler, because its purpose is to translate plain text (i.e., source code) into binary code (i.e., runnable programs that can be read directly by the CPU).
All filters use plain text input and produce plain text output. Filters, which are among the most important programs in Unix-like operating systems, are small and (usually) specialized programs that transform plain text data in some meaningful way. They are designed to be linked together using pipes (represented in commands by the vertical bar character) to form pipelines of commands that can have great power and flexibility.
Also, Unix-like operating systems use plain text files (i.e., files that contain only plain text and no binary data) for system and application configuration information. A major advantage of this approach is ease of access and modification, which can be particularly useful when repairing a crashed or otherwise damaged system. Examples of plain text configuration files include /etc/fstab (which lists the currently mountable filesystems), etc/passwd (which holds user account data) and /etc/httpd.conf (which is the configuration file for the highly popular Apache web server).
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Originally posted by mat ausserdem kenne ich diesen neuen trend nicht, habe xml configs auch noch nie bei klassischen linux applikationen gesehen. auch bei php, wo es sich anbieten würde, konnte ich von einem "einbürgern" noch nichts dergleichen feststellen. [/QUOTE]
dann liegt es hoechstwahrscheinlich daran daß dein horizont in diesem fall nicht breit genug ist.
siehe:
Gnome: durch und durch XML
OS X: xml für startup config und init (launchd)
fonttool/fontconfig/freetype
FreeBSD: kann mit xml files boostrapped werden: m0n0wall
(launchd port auch möglich)
ImageMagick
OpenOffice
XChat
foomatic
KDE's kate
xkb in X11
Evolution
Gentoo Linux installer und diverse andere installer
elektra initiative (die vielleicht mal LSB wird) [XML config für Xorg, Samba, ...]
... sind mal die dinge die die mir ad hoc einfallen und die jetzt schon XML config verwenden, wahrscheinlich verwenden dutzende andere apps XML als basis fürs config, die bei jeder 0815 linux installation dabei sind. nicht umsonst ist die libxml2 als standardpacket in nahe zu jeder distribution zu finden, und das in der minimal/basis-config.
und dies war noch vor ~5-8 jahren nicht so, da war dieser trend zumindest mir nicht so offensichtlich wie jetzt.
aus wikipedia:
[quote]Recently, XML and YAML have become popular as configuration file formats. They have the advantages of having well-defined syntaxes, and tools to validate and verify the syntax of the files that are created in those formats. [/quote]
nur weil es sich bei php anbieten würde XML für die konfiguration zu verwenden und es nicht so realisiert ist bis dato, heißt das lange nicht daß dieser trend nicht existiert, oder gar daß die PHP devs nicht in dieser richtung schnuppern würden. obwohls großteil ansichtssache ist: faktisch gesehen ist PHP gsd keine klassische linux applikation, sowas gibt es eigentlich gar nicht.
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