Re: Data-driven Programming: fun with Perl, JSON, YAML, XML...

[LanX]

Personally I'd prefer working with a Domain Specific Language for configuration, far more flexible!

Each entry must be a sub in your my_config package, action is a sub action (&) {...} taking a code block with options.

It's not only easy to read for non programmers, but also easy to validate (just add prototypes and do argument checking within the subs)

 
package my_config;

action {
    id      'svninfo';
    desc    'svn working copy information';
    cmdline 'svn info';
    workdir '';
    logfile 'minbld_svninfo.log';
    tee     1;
    prompt  0;
    run     1;
};

action {
    id      'svnup';
    desc    'Run full svn update';
    cmdline 'svn update';
    workdir '';
    logfile 'minbld_svnupdate.log';
    tee     1;
    prompt  0;
    run     1;
};
# ...

(update: features which are only boolean could be handled without arguments with useful defaults, i.e. run 1 is simply run and run 0 is skipped)

DRY could be achieved with preloaded constants, nested structures or special commands to set defaults like

default workdir => '';

# or
default {
   workdir '';
}

# or just a top-level setting
workdir '';


action { 
  # workdir can be missing now
}

The fact that you can insert arbitrary perlcode is a mixed bag, it might add extra flexibility but also be a source of bugs with non-hackers. Deactivating builtins in CORE might be an option...

Dunno if there is already an appropriate module on CPAN (?), otherwise I'd volunteer producing one for the comming GPW.