Re: Composing service definitions (and maybe fmt)

[Thompson, David]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> wrote:

> To me, the question is more about choosing between writing configuration
> file bindings and exposing upstream’s configuration file syntax, as was
> discussed when Andy posted the Dovecot service.  (To which I don’t have
> a better answer than: let’s see on a case-by-case basis.)

How about this:

Procedures that return services should accept file-like objects when
configuration files are needed.  When it makes sense (like with
elogind, dovecot, etc.), we can provide special procedures that take a
Scheme data structure and "compile" that to a file-like object in the
service's native configuration language.  This way, we allow ourselves
to have the high-level Scheme configuration APIs we like while also
allowing the use of "raw" configuration files in situations where it
is unavoidable or the path of least resistance.

- Dave