Talk:Configuration file

rc files

Article is missing an explanation of rc files. What does "rc" stand for in, eg .bashrc ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.40.226 (talk • contribs)

I've added a quick paragraph on that. If it doesn't adequately answer your question, please say so. -- Gwern (contribs) 02:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

.conf files on Unix

i am trying to understand some .conf files for the pyrpose of editing them. Theay are called from oracle forms to generate pdf. Here is an example <custom type="env" command="APP_USER"/>

<plsql type="function"> BEGIN :out := 'As On ' || to_char(to_date(:1, 'MM/DD/RRRR'), 'MM/DD/RRRR'); END; </plsql>

</LAYOUT> <LAYOUT type="header" repeat="page" flush="before"> <LINE> <COLUMN value="DATE" start="100" end="115" align="right" vartype="V" returntype="C"/> <COLUMN value="TIME" start="120" end="128" align="right" vartype="V" returntype="C"/> </LINE> . . . </LAYOUT>

<QUERY> <![CDATA[

SELECT abc from dual;

. . ]]> </QUERY> <BIND FRAME="0" COLUMN="1"/> <BIND FRAME="0" COLUMN="1"/> <BIND FRAME="0" COLUMN="1"/> <BIND FRAME="0" COLUMN="1"/> .. .. .. then goes on defining frame layout and breaks and looks too complex to modify to just add two more columns t it.

Can you please explain such file formats??

Thanks S

Reminds me of XML. But this really is not the place to be asking such things. --Gwern (contribs) 22:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The place is: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing --Teratornis 05:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resource file ≠ Config File?

Does the term “resource file” normally equal “config file,” per the redirect from resource file to this page? At least in the field of software localization, “resource file” may refer to an external file that contains strings and other runtime content that is loaded separately from a normal config file (the config file may point the software to use a particular resource file). Although the two are related, you can see the distinction in Mac OS X architecture’s distinction between plist files (config) and lproj (resource) folders. I don’t see this sort of distinction made here and would like to add a discussion of localization resource files to the appropriate article.

My thought is to eliminate the redirect from resource file to this article and introduce a disambiguation page in its place that would point to this article and to a separate article on localization resource files.

I do not, however, want to create a problem for more widely used and accepted terms, so I would welcome comment before I make this change.

-Fenevad 14:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

resource file should probably be a disambig link - the term is used very differently on Mac systems where resource forks are still in use —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 20:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resource files often have a separate meaning. In windows apps resources are extra things that get compiled in to an exe/dll; in other platforms they tend to mean text files containing localised strings. Config files are different. SteveLoughran (talk) 22:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of Conf Files

This article implies that XML/YAML conf files are a solution to the problem of a broad spread of different syntaxes for unix/linux conf files; I'd argue it is the same problem: a broad spread of application-specific configuration languages. XML may at least add a consistent unicoding and syntax, but as every language is different, it is fairly unhelpful.

The Configuration Management product concept does attempt to address this. I think the article would benefit from some references. Otherwise, maybe, just maybe, a uniform adoption of RDF may work, but I will wait and see. SteveLoughran (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But all that assumes that it is a problem. I have never vikram experienced it that way – name = value and # for comments isn't exactly rocket science. JöG (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of documentation

The article says things like The formats of configuration files are often poorly documented and Some configuration files are partially described by man or help pages, and there are no standards or strong conventions.

I'm a bit curious what context that comes from, because on my Unix system (Debian Linux) I can name very few undocumented config files. Section 5 (file formats) in the installed documentation has roughly 182 entries, most of which document config files. Most of these use the traditional name=value file format, described e.g. in Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming.

Of course, I have little experience with MS-DOS or Windows config files, nor with non-free Linux applications, and I haven't touched commercial Unices for a while. JöG (talk) 17:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]