Hi, (Sorry for the late reply…)
Andrew Tropin <[email protected]> skribis: > Ludovic Courtès <[email protected]> writes: [...] >>>> Possible action: >>>> >>>> 1. Change config records to accept file-like objects instead of >>>> strings. That way, users can choose to have snippets inlined (in a >>>> ‘plain-file’ object) or separate (via ‘local-file’). See for >>>> example how ‘tor-configuration->torrc’ does it. >>> >>> Yeah, there is a ‘slurp-file-gexp’ procedure that let’s one read an >>> extenal file, but using existing APIs like ‘local-file’ is probably a >>> better idea. >> >> Yes, it feels more natural. Also, ‘slurp-file-gexp’ returns a gexp (a >> code snippet), but as a user you don’t know where that snippet is going >> to be inserted; it may not work in some contexts. > > Acually, the idea behind `slurp-file-gexp` is that you always know where > it will be inserted, because it will be inside the specific section of > the configuration. Take a look at emacs home-service example: > https://git.sr.ht/~abcdw/rde/tree/master/item/gnu/home-services/emacs.scm#L91 What I mean is that, in a general sense, one cannot know whether the gexp will be inserted in a place where it’s “valid”. Consider the following examples, where the gexp is meant to be inserted in lieu of “PLACEHOLDER”: #~(list '(#$PLACEHOLDER)) ;it’s quoted #~(let ((call-with-input-file (const #f))) #$PLACEHOLDER) These are “hygiene” problems discussed in the “Code Staging in GNU Guix” paper. All this to say that, from an API viewpoint, I think it’s (1) more robust, as I wrote, and (2) clearer to expect file-like objects in such places. It’s clearer because users can be expected to have an understanding of what ‘local-file’ does, whereas ‘slurp-file-gexp’ is more involved. I hope this clarifies what I had in mind! Ludo’.
