Re: I must be missing something

[Amit Aronovitch]

Shachar Shemesh wrote: Just about every free program on Linux keeps a configuration file in /etc. They all fairly much carry the same format. It simply defies logic that there would be no standard library to read this configuration file in. "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." (Andrew Tannenbaum)  ;-) People already mentioned gconf, mcop, elektra (which I did not know of before) & various scripting languages. Let me add to the pile:   http://open.nit.ca/wiki/?page=UniConf Note that as opposed to the other systems(*), UniConf does not enforce a single file format - but supports multiple backends instead (plus a plugin mechanism which you can use to write your own). It has backends for XML, ini-style files, and other conf systems (e.g. - gconf backend).  So, in that respect at least, it seems to be a closer match to what your'e saying. (p.s. - I did not try using it. Just bumped into it few months ago and went on to read some docs because it seemed interesting.) -- Amit A. (*) - at least as far as my limited knowledge of them goes (I think that gconf does support other backends than it's default xml files, but I don't think they expect people to write many user defined backend).