Feature Wiki

Information about planned and released features

Tabs

Modern Configuration File Format

Page Overview

1 Requirements
2 Status
3 Additional Information
4 Discussion
5 Implementation

1 Requirements

Ilias currently uses configuration files in INI-Format, which offers sections and variables. Nothing more. They are placed inside the webroot and protected by a php-code-snippet <?php die(); ?>.

More flexible approaches allow nested sections / arrays. The list of possible formats is long:
- yaml
- json
- xml
- php
- ...

Switching to a more flexible format with nesting would allow much better structure in configuration options.

I suggest yaml/json/xml for everything that is supposed to be changed by ILIAS. My favorite is YAML, because it is very clean and free of clutter.

Use-Cases:
1. One major use case is customizations which are often configured (and thus limited) by ini-settings. As a workaround we already used to nest a json-string into the ini-file - but that is not really intuitive and needs two levels of interpretation in ILIAS.

2. Another use case would be better abstraction of ILIAS initialization with Service Factories and/or a Dependency-Injection-Container: A Service-Factory could then just expect to receive its own configuration-array with arbitrary complex sub-structure.

--

Optional

Move configuration files outside of directories generally accessible via web (e.g. /ilias.ini.php --> /config/ilias.yaml)
have new custom config-files (global- and client-level), e.g.:
- ilias-custom.yaml (for manual editing)
- ilias-setup.yaml (generated by setup) - overwrites custom-settings
- clients/xxx/client-custom.yaml (for manual editing) - overwrites global-settings
- clients/xxx/client-setup.yaml (generated by setup) - overwrites custom-settings

Note: Zend Framework offers a library to merge nested arrays, which is very nice for such hierarchies of configuration files.

YAML Example

--- !clarkevans.com/^invoice
invoice: 34843
date   : 2001-01-23
bill-to: &id001
    given  : Chris
    family : Dumars
    address:
        lines: |
            458 Walkman Dr.
            Suite #292
        city    : Royal Oak
        state   : MI
        postal  : 48046
ship-to: *id001
product:
    - sku         : BL394D
      quantity    : 4
      description : Basketball
      price       : 450.00
    - sku         : BL4438H
      quantity    : 1
      description : Super Hoop
      price       : 2392.00
tax  : 251.42
total: 4443.52

JSON Example

{
  "invoice": 34843,
  "date": "2001-01-23T00:00:00.000Z",
  "bill-to": {
    "given": "Chris",
    "family": "Dumars",
    "address": {
      "lines": "458 Walkman Dr.\nSuite #292\n",
      "city": "Royal Oak",
      "state": "MI",
      "postal": 48046
    }
  },
  "ship-to": {
    "given": "Chris",
    "family": "Dumars",
    "address": {
      "lines": "458 Walkman Dr.\nSuite #292\n",
      "city": "Royal Oak",
      "state": "MI",
      "postal": 48046
    }
  },
  "product": [
    {
      "sku": "BL394D",
      "quantity": 4,
      "description": "Basketball",
      "price": 450
    },
    {
      "sku": "BL4438H",
      "quantity": 1,
      "description": "Super Hoop",
      "price": 2392
    }
  ],
  "tax": 251.42,
  "total": 4443.52
}

XML Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<root>
    <invoice>34843</invoice>
    <date>2001-01-23</date>
    <bill-to>
        <given>Chris</given>
        <family>Dumars</family>
        <address>
            <lines>458 Walkman Dr.
Suite #292
</lines>
            <city>Royal Oak</city>
            <state>MI</state>
            <postal>48046</postal>
        </address>
    </bill-to>
    <ship-to>
        <given>Chris</given>
        <family>Dumars</family>
        <address>
            <lines>458 Walkman Dr.
Suite #292
</lines>
            <city>Royal Oak</city>
            <state>MI</state>
            <postal>48046</postal>
        </address>
    </ship-to>
    <product>
        <sku>BL394D</sku>
        <quantity>4</quantity>
        <description>Basketball</description>
        <price>450</price>
    </product>
    <product>
        <sku>BL4438H</sku>
        <quantity>1</quantity>
        <description>Super Hoop</description>
        <price>2392</price>
    </product>
    <tax>251.42</tax>
    <total>4443.52</total>
</root>

PHP Example

<?php
$config = {
  "product": [
    {
      "sku": "BL394D", 
      "price": 450.0, 
      "description": "Basketball", 
      "quantity": 4
    }, 
    {
      "sku": "BL4438H", 
      "price": 2392.0, 
      "description": "Super Hoop", 
      "quantity": 1
    }
  ], 
  "ship-to": {
    "given": "Chris", 
    "family": "Dumars", 
    "address": {
      "city": "Royal Oak", 
      "state": "MI", 
      "postal": 48046, 
      "lines": "458 Walkman Dr.\nSuite #292\n"
    }
  }, 
  "bill-to": {
    "given": "Chris", 
    "family": "Dumars", 
    "address": {
      "city": "Royal Oak", 
      "state": "MI", 
      "postal": 48046, 
      "lines": "458 Walkman Dr.\nSuite #292\n"
    }
  }, 
  "invoice": 34843, 
  "date": "2001-01-23", 
  "total": 4443.5200000000004, 
  "tax": 251.41999999999999
}

2 Status

Scheduled for: Not scheduled yet (will be set by Jour Fixe)
Funding: Required / Interest in funding: (please indicate if you are interested to fund this feature)
Maintainer: (will be set by Jour Fixe)
Implementation of the feature is done by (company, developer)
Contract settled: No | Fill in "Yes" if a contract is already settled and add Institution / Organisation in "Funding" row
Tested by / status: (name, e-mail), (status information set after implementation)

3 Additional Information

Contact the following persons if you want to know more about this feature, its implementation or funding:

Information about concept: (name, e-mail)
Information about funding: (name, e-mail)
Information about implementation: (name, e-mail)

4 Discussion

5 Implementation

...

Last edited: 22. Sep 2014, 20:57, Kiegel, Colin [kiegel]