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>>>>> On Tue, 15 Dec 2015, Mike Frysinger wrote: |
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> a flat text file akin to /etc/passwd is not readable. xml is readable. |
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ESR's case study about the password file format seems to disagree: |
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http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch05s01.html#id2901332 |
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I think the name:password:uid:gid:gecos:directory:shell format is |
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readable well enough for human eyes. Certainly it is machine readable; |
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even with standard tools like fgetpwent(3) (or its equivalent in other |
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programming languages). |
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> a markdown like format would work -- easy to parse by machines & humans |
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> and is a single stackable file. |
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Reinventing the wheel? |
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> user:ntp |
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> <whitespace>uid:203 |
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> <whitespace>gid:203 |
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> user:man |
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> <whitespace>uid:13 |
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> <whitespace>gid:13 |
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> (using : as delimiter since that's what *NIX uses in /etc/passwd) |
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> the main one would grow probably to about 2000+ lines (~400 users in |
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> the tree and each entry takes ~4 lines assuming we enforce eliding |
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> of defaults) which isn't that terrible. |
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To me this looks like a lot of added redundancy for little (if any) |
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benefit. |
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Ulrich |
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