Il 29/02/2012 18:31, no-re...@cfengine.com ha scritto: > First of all, *aw shucks* thanks for the very nice words about the > book in your post :)
My pleasure, that's much deserved! > Second, I would agree with everything that Mark said, and encourage > you to look at the new edit_template attribute. It makes things like > this much easier by allowing you to embed class-conditioned blocks in > a file template, among other things. Yep, I've looked at the new templates, and I agree that is a major step forward. Thanks for doing that! > Third, whenever I find myself trying too hard to bend CFEngine's > behavior into my way of thinking, I try to step back and look at the > bigger picture. In this particular case, I would wonder whether order > in this file is really important, or if I want it just for aesthetic > benefit. If order is really important, is it just within certain > blocks? When you could use the preserve_block attribute. In this case, it was more of a proof of concept for me. I've fought with this problem in the past, and couldn't find a good way to do it. After reading your book and those class wizardries to change the normal order I thought: "WOW! I think I could try to force a number of lines in a file in a certain order, but... will it converge quick enough?". That's why the file contains many lines and not just three :) I wanted to be sure that I could both force a certain order, and that I could make it quick enough that it could fit in three passes. Today I learnt more about how classes are defined in the various passes, and also that I can actually force certain operations in a certain order, if I have the need. Overkill? Sure! Could be done much, much better? Damn yes it could! But... hey! I made it! Isn't that an achievement? ;-) > And a final technique I try is to remove all my flow-control code > (class settings and conditions) and write just the CFEngine code, and > try it out. More often than not CFEngine surprises me by doing the > right things without needing my handholding. I tend to do the opposite actually :) First, put out the insert_line rules and see if it does what I want/expect. If it doesn't, I look for alternatives (which, as you suggest, could involve a "step back" approach to reconsider the problem). Thanks again -- bronto _______________________________________________ Help-cfengine mailing list Help-cfengine@cfengine.org https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
