From: Sean Russell <ser@...>
Date: 2002-01-19T01:38:48+09:00
Subject: Submission: Ruby shard for config files

Here's a code snippit I find myself using quite a bit.  I thought others 
might find it useful.

  module Config
    def load file
      lines = IO.readlines(file)
      lines.collect! do |line|
        line.scan(/(((["']).*\3)|\S+)/).
          collect { |ar| ar[0] } unless /^\s*(#.*)?$/
      end
      lines.each do |args|
        self.send( *args )
      end
    end
  end


Example usage:

  require "config"
  class MyConf
    include Config
    attr_reader :files, :commands

    def initialize file
      @files = []
      @commands = {}
      load file
    end

    def watch(file)
      @files << file
    end

    def command file, command
      @commands[file] = command
    end
  end
  conf = MyConf.new "/etc/myapp.conf"


Here's a sample config file:


  watch /tmp/somefile.txt
  watch /etc/someotherfile.txt
  command something "cat something"


Please note that there is a measure of insecurity to using this code, if 
you don't protect the config file.  If you want a (more) secure version, do 
the following:  replace the following lines

      lines.each do |args|
        self.send( *args )
      end

with

      lines.each do |args|
        self.send( *args ) if protected_methods.include?(args[0])
      end

and then protect all of your configuration methods.  There are probably 
other ways of doing this, but this ensures that only the methods you 
specify will be called.

-- 
--- SER