>>>>> On Tue, 15 Dec 2015, Mike Frysinger wrote: > a flat text file akin to /etc/passwd is not readable. xml is readable.
ESR's case study about the password file format seems to disagree: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch05s01.html#id2901332 I think the name:password:uid:gid:gecos:directory:shell format is readable well enough for human eyes. Certainly it is machine readable; even with standard tools like fgetpwent(3) (or its equivalent in other programming languages). > a markdown like format would work -- easy to parse by machines & humans > and is a single stackable file. Reinventing the wheel? > user:ntp > <whitespace>uid:203 > <whitespace>gid:203 > user:man > <whitespace>uid:13 > <whitespace>gid:13 > (using : as delimiter since that's what *NIX uses in /etc/passwd) > the main one would grow probably to about 2000+ lines (~400 users in > the tree and each entry takes ~4 lines assuming we enforce eliding > of defaults) which isn't that terrible. To me this looks like a lot of added redundancy for little (if any) benefit. Ulrich
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