On Jul 10, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Markus Roberts wrote:
After mulling this a while, I think the real issue is that we're
treating ensure as an attribute-set rather than as an attribute. It's
a magic feature that semantically sets a whole slew of features. When
we say "ensure => present" we really mean "present => true" and so on:
"ensure => absent" means "present => false"
"ensure => 3.2" means "present => true; version => 3.2"
"ensure => running" means "present => true; running => true"
"ensure => eatable" means "present => true; toxic => false;
palatable => true"
and so on. Then all the special casing is on the two-valued "present"
attribute instead of trying to figure out what "ensure => scrumulous"
means, we just say that any of the above which set "present => false"
also set all other state attributes to undef, while leaving identity
attributes (e.g. name, target, provider) unchanged.
This seems like a reasonable conclusion, but how do you plan on
implementing it? Actually creating multiple parameters?
How does this change if we treat 'ensure' as a state machine, as we've
been "planning" on doing for a while?
Isn't it more like certain states or state transitions swamp all other
out-of-sync parameters and others don't?
I'm not saying you can't figure out how to treat 'ensure' as multiple
parameters, but I never had much luck in my paltry attempts at it. In
fact, the only case where I tried splitting it up -- services, with
'enable => true' and 'ensure => running' -- is essentially a usability
disaster.
--
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