On Wed, 2004-08-04 at 10:04, Michael Stenner wrote: > The issue is basically the desire to balance power and flexibility > with simplicity. Every option that's added to the command line > requires a little more code in the config section, more documentation, > and a little more thought to preserving backward compatibility. For > any single option, these things are fairly minor (at least in cases > like this where you're mostly replicating config file options on the > command line) but you need to be a bit strict lest they creep in one > at a time. All true, and basically true with respect to any of the changes that yum has undergone and continues to undergo. Changing code is time-consuming, and hassle-atious at best. You do it only when you have to, to fix what is broken, or, to make "worthwhile" improvements. But option-handling, like you say, especially when it duplicates config file options, is fairly minor. Where it could possibly get "messy" is handling the grouping of options under the server sections - to be honest, I don't know how that would work. > This is not a right/wrong debate, but one of tradeoffs. You're one > user who is trying to do something slighly exotic for which there are > a few clear (albeit slightly ugly) solutions. I don't think it's exotic at all. My config files are really simple. There is either one or two server sections, consisting only of the 'baseurl' (and 'name', which isn't very useful). It's just that I have a lot of config files. (I would only need one, if I could pass the policy and the server baseurl's on the commandline.) Maybe you mean my particular set of requirements isn't common - possibly true. But I wonder how many others maintain multiple config files, or resort to cgi scripts, when more commandline flexibility would make using yum much easier for them. > I tend to agree with seth that putting each repo in its own included > file, and then having one top-level config file for each (that > includes the appropriate repos) is probably the cleanest way to go. This doesn't address my issue, "too many config files", at all! I cannot have one top-level file, and I have to maintain numerous repo files. I know there are ways to work with the present capabilities and requirements of yum, and I'll continue to do so. Like I've said, yum has made my work much easier. I just see ways it could work even better for me, and they seem kind of natural, in the unix way, and I wanted to know why they might not be good ideas. Too much hassle/not enough value seems to be the answer - ok. thanks all, Ed
