Avoiding hard-coding

I have a script that reads data from a configuration file. I'd like to remove all hard-coding from the script and put anything that might need to be changed into the config file. Unfortunately, the one bit of data I can't figure out how to move is... the path to the config file. It won't necessarily be in the same directory as the script. And I'd rather not require that as a parameter to the script. Is there a way around this one?

[Abigail-II]

This is a known problem, and solved by a gazillion of applications. It usually goes, in precedence order:
• Command line argument(s)
• Environment variables.
• Set of fixed locations to search (files and/or directories).

Abigail

[hossman]

You might be interested in Config::Find or Config::Auto ... they were both built to support the idea that for theapplication named "foo" there are a fairly common set of places to look for "foo" configuration files. -- unless of course the user tells me exactly which file to use, in which case i'll trust them.

[liz]

Hmmm... other than having the file at a standard location (as is the case with e.g. /etc/passwd), or using an environment variable, the only thing I can then think of is the PSI::ReadMindOfUser module.

Liz

[Nkuvu]

That would indeed be a very handy module to have lying around. Heck, it could even write the script for you in the first place...

[QM]

[mirod]

I use a default location (using FindBin if the default location is the code directory) and a command line argument to change it if needed:

use YAML qw(LoadFile);          # my config files are often in YAML
use FindBin qw($Bin);           # $Bin gives the code directory
use Getopt::Std;                # Getopt::Long is probably better

my %opt;
getopts( 'c:' => \%opt);        # -c <config_file>

$opt{c} ||= "$Bin/config.yaml"; # default location

# this is far from perfect, I should really open the file properly,
# slurp it and then use YAML to parse the content
# as it is, if the file exists but cannot be opened the
# error message is a bit ugly... 
die "cannot find file config file $opt{c}" unless( -f $opt{c});

my $env= LoadFile( $opt{c});

[pg]

Use environment variable. Environment variables are stored in %ENV.

[coreolyn]

I find that if my app grows I invariably end up doing the following. (Ususally I need my stuff to run in Win32 and Solaris)

• Kick off the perl script with a bat script with the same name as a shell script and available via normal system paths. ( That way both have the same command line)
• Use the bat/shell script to set local library locations and cd to the root of the application/scripts
• (After my command line parsing) a begin block to get my libraries to load the way I want/need them to
• Pull in a config file that utilizes relative directories to load into the environment (%ENV).

While this isn't optimal, it is reliable and reuaable, and has become so much a pattern I just start with this style from a template (which includss generic POD and of course strict & -w )

Unfortunately the company has laid ownership to the template, but it is easy enough to roll your own