Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [kvm-devel] [PATCH][RFC] Allowing QEMU to directly execute a directory (and storing command line options in it)

[Andreas Färber]

Am 01.09.2007 um 13:02 schrieb Markus Hitter:

> Am 31.08.2007 um 20:54 schrieb Anthony Liguori:
>
> > It makes little sense to pass a directory when you can pass a config
> > file and assume that the directory the config file is in is the CWD.
>
> In fact, most people having designed bundle-type document formats  
> came to a different conclusion: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> Bundle_(NEXTSTEP)>. Typically, bundles are opaque and appear like a  
> single file to the desktop user.
>
> > [...] And then do:
> >
> > qemu -c MyImage/vm.cfg
>
> In opposite to "qemu -c MyImage" ?
>
> Why do you want the user to do extra typing? There's one config in  
> one directory, so typing the config file name is just redundant.
>
>
> To me, Jorge's implementation looks just fine.

I support the idea of having a bundle for the machine and naming only  
that bundle.

However the bundle still needs an extension. Like I already pointed  
out, on Mac OS X Q uses .qvm for its Qemu guest bundles, making it  
"qemu -c MyGuest.qvm". Or alternatively maybe .qemu?

And I don't understand why, when going along with the bundle idea,  
you are suddenly creating a new configuration file format of your  
own. There is a standard format, XML or text based, which can be  
easily parsed with OSX APIs (and thus likely *Step APIs as well) as a  
dictionary, allowing structured information to be stored and thus  
allowing Qemu backends to store their own settings alongside. See  
attached one my bundles' configuration.plist file (XML serialized) -  
relevant is only the Arguments entry, everything else is GUI  
specific. I'm not saying this format (the structure) were perfect but  
the underlying "property list" format (key, value-type) is standard  
for such bundles, so instead of re-inventing the wheel please take a  
look at how it's being done!

With Q already using this technique and QEMU possibly using bundles  
as well, it would seem like a good idea to synchronize the two  
efforts so that in the end we get only one bundle format instead of  
one for each frontend.

Thanks,

Andreas

configuration.plist
Description: Binary data