Re: [kvm-devel] [Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH] Add support for a configuration file

[Kelly French]

On Wed, 14 May 2008, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Wed, 14 May 2008, Javier Guerra wrote:
>
> > On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Johannes Schindelin
> > <address@hidden> wrote:
> > >  On Wed, 14 May 2008, Javier Guerra wrote:
> > > > What about Lua?  (http://www.lua.org)
> > > >
> > > > it started up as a configuration language, and evolved into a full
> > > > programming language, while remaining _very_ light (less than 200K
> > > > with all libraries), and wonderfully easy to embed into C programs.
> > >
> > >  Okay, so much for the upsides.  Now for the downsides: a language that
> > >  nearly nobody knows, for something that is not meant to be executed (think
> > >  security implications).
> >
> > when embedded, you get to choose what libraries are available. there
> > are several examples of fairly secure settings.
>
> Why artificially make it complicated, and then have to take care of such
> issues?
>
> That's like an ex-colleague of mine, who absolutely had to rewrite the
> database engine in-RAM, and when the application was too slow over modem
> (leeching in megabytes, where it got bytes from the SQL database before),
> he tried to force Windows Terminal Services, instead of reverting his
> change.
>
> Simplicity is underrated.
>
> Ciao,
> Dscho

Why not just bypass the whole config file idea and just use enviornment 
variables?  No more parsing or dependencies on the language of the day. 
Yes, you wouldn't have the tree format that some people are asking for. 
You'd get all of the power of your favorite shell, plus maybe some 
benefits when migrating a VM to another machine.

        -kf

#!/bin/sh

drive_0_file=foo.img
drive_0_if=scsi

drive_1_file=bar.img
drive_1_if=scsi

drive_2_file=wiz.img
drive_2_if=scsi

exec qemu