[ZODB-Dev] Re: AdaptableStorage - format of property files

[Shane Hathaway]

Jeff Kowalczyk wrote:
 > Many windows text editors (beyond notepad) will respect or optionally
 > convert unix and dos formats.
 >
 > It would seem more important to have the metadata - particularly
 > pickles - in a uniform cross-platform format, so that the adapter
 > doesn't have to examine the filesystem object representation before
 > loading to activate or restoring from a backup that possibly came
 > from another platform or was synthesized from external data. Add-on
 > tools like external python scripts to create or manipulate .property
 > files, also have to get that much smarter if you introduce a CR/CR-LF
 > mode.

Well, I don't think text files are very hard to read/write in a 
platform-independent manner, but pickles definitely need to be stored 
differently than they are now.  As it turns out, even text-mode pickles 
are really binary.

 > For projects that will encourage end user hand- or external tool-
 > editing, an adapter using a richer or more editing-friendly format is
 > probably called for (YAML would be really cool)
 >
 > Considering the small subset of windows-using FileSystem Adaptable
 > Storage who do want to hand-edit .proprerty text files and yet don't
 > have an advanced text editor, I'd vote to keep it LF-only. I'd think
 > of an AS that is configured to use a different property file format
 > as a distinctly new storage type, which is fine, there'll be lots of
 > subclasses by virtue of the very nature of Adaptable Storage.

It could be an option.

I want to get to the point where we can reliably put ZODB objects under 
version control using AdaptableStorage.  AFAIK WinCVS automatically adds 
CRs to text files.  Other software might do the same, so 
AdaptableStorage shouldn't choke on CRs.  It's probably fine with CRs 
already, except for pickle storage and maybe a few details.

Shane