Re: [infinispan-dev] Re: property tags in configuration files

Interesting discussions. I agree that JAXB *would* have been the ideal way about this, but that brings in a) additional deps with Java5, and b) a not-so-pretty object model for configuration beans, and c) does not help us generate docs. So essentially we have: 1) a simple(-ish) object model for programmatic configuration. 2) an XML parser to parse a coherent XML file and generate the beans in (1). 3) documentation for all setters in (1) and all elements/attributes in (2). As Vladimir pointed out, this effort is to remove the hand-written parser we have which handles (2), and to save us writing hand- written docs for (3). By annotating the object model in (1), we can generate appropriate documentation for (3) as well as parse XML to populate the bean for (2). Emmanuel, note that these annotations are internal only and are not public API. End users would configure stuff by doing: Configuration c = new Configuration(); c.setBlah( blah ); The annotations are purely for core devs who would need to add a new configuration element for new feature X. By adding a new getter and setter to the Configuration bean, and appropriately annotating it, this new config element is automagically added to the XSD, will be parsed from XML, and is documented. That said, I do like the "fluent config" approach where folks can do: c.setBlah( blah ).setFoo( foo ); HTH, Cheers Manik On 22 Jun 2009, at 18:41, Vladimir Blagojevic wrote: > On 6/22/09 10:52 AM, Emmanuel Bernard wrote: >> OK here is my take. >> >> Populating bean is fairly PITA for a user and a fluent API >> approach makes configuration more readable. > Fluent config API is the one that allows chaining calls, right? > These are very elegant, but they seem more suitable for configs > that follow more of a grammar like structure. Infinispan's config > tree is not so nice so to speak. >> >> http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/hibernate/search/trunk/src/test/java/org/h... >> (check NotUseddefineMapping) >> and the root class >> http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/hibernate/search/trunk/src/main/java/org/h... >> >> if you want to stay on the bean side, I am wondering why you don't >> use JAXB or something like that to bind the XML model to the >> object model. > > We want to reuse these annotations to kill three birds with one > stone. Configuration beans are the source, or if you want - code is > the source. We annotate those beans and get for free human readable > configuration documentation, configuration schema, and, if > possible, use those annotations in conjunction with beans to > populate the beans automatically during configuration reading from > xml. > > Does it make better sense now? Appreciate your input! > > Regards, > Vladimir > _______________________________________________ > infinispan-dev mailing list > infinispan-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/infinispan-dev -- Manik Surtani manik(a)jboss.org Lead, Infinispan Lead, JBoss Cache http://www.infinispan.org http://www.jbosscache.org