Hi, I recently requested comments on a P5EE Security API. While considering this myself (and reexamining some of the component lists that have been created), I realize that we need a Configuration API simultaneous with the Security API. However we are going to configure the Security system would presumably be the same way that we would configure all of our components.
The J2EE uses an XML deployment descriptor for all of their configuration needs. This is a request for comments on Configuration. My thoughts are as follows. * One configuration file should be able to satisfy all P5EE components * When read in, the configuration data should be represented by a reference to a hash containing a multi-level data structure * The config API should have a pluggable interface so that a "driver" can be written to get the configuration information from anywhere * The default driver should read a config file which contains Perl which can be "eval-ed" for speed (i.e. such as would be spit out by Data::Dumper) * An alternate driver should be available which reads an XML config file and converts it to the desired format. (Optionally, this converted/native form of the data might be cached as Data::Dumper-ed output or as a Storable on disk. This would improve performance, the way XML::Simple does.) I have a few more foundational questions which I will send in other emails to keep the discussion threads clean in the archives. Stephen http://www.officevision.com/pub/p5ee P.S. I have added links to Paul Kulchenko's Component List and Greg McCarroll's Component Mini-Specs here. http://www.officevision.com/pub/p5ee/p5ee_modules.html
