Re: Parted 1.5.1-pre

[Dan Knapp]

> I don't think backups need to be human-editable, although human
> readable might be nice.  I think something like
> 
> fprintf (stream,
>        "id-%d: start-%l end-%l c-%d h-%d s-%d type-%d\n",
>        num, start, end, c, h, s, type);
> 
> would suffice.
> 
> I don't think other programs would/should ever need to parse these.

  Then, that's what I'll do.  That's pretty similar to what I almost
suggested, but I do value the stated purposes of XML, and thought I should
make the case for it.

  At any rate, XML is *most definitely* not easier to parse.


> >   I would even say that those configuration files would be redundant.
> > Scripting suffices and is probably more versatile.
> 
> I think configuration files (which could be generated by GUIs) could
> be a lot easier.  Which isn't to say we shouldn't allow scripting.

  It would be hard for us to prevent scripting! :)  All right, in this case
config files will be a distinct format from the backup files, so they needn't
be figured out now...  What sort of capabilities might they have?

  The obvious, to start things off:

  - Specify partitions of a fixed size.

  - Specify whether and how the ends of partitions will be "rounded" to
    various sorts of alignment boundaries - ie, cylinders, or the alignment
    points of other partition types.

  - Specify partitions which have one fixed endpoint - either one - and "draw"
    additional space from a common pool.

  - Specify the how the free-space pool will be allocated by giving a ratio
    of where it should be put to.

  - Specify that the free-space pool will behave differently for different
    amounts of free space - for example, allocate everything up to the first
    64M to increasing the size of swap, but everything after that to
    [the partitiosn which will be used as] /usr and /var in 1:1.

  - Specify "free partitions", which are actually the absence of partitions,
    in all the same ways that actual partitions can be specified.

  - To the extent possible, specify this all in a way which can be used
    unchanged with different partition-table formats if desired.


| Dan Knapp, Knight of the Random Seed
| http://brain.mics.net/~dankna/
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