[asterisk-bugs] [Asterisk 0010643]: Config parser eats comments for breakfast

[noreply at bugs.digium.com]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
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http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=10643 
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Reported By:                jsmith
Assigned To:                murf
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Project:                    Asterisk
Issue ID:                   10643
Category:                   Core/ManagerInterface
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   minor
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     assigned
Asterisk Version:           1.4.11  
SVN Branch (only for SVN checkouts, not tarball releases): N/A  
SVN Revision (number only!):  
Disclaimer on File?:        N/A 
Request Review:              
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Date Submitted:             09-04-2007 14:04 CDT
Last Modified:              09-05-2007 09:22 CDT
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Summary:                    Config parser eats comments for breakfast
Description: 
The Asterisk config parser (used by AMI for GetConfig/UpdateConfig, etc.)
eats comments on the end of lines, and makes it harder for people to follow
the configuration files after they've been edited by Asterisk.

I've talked with murf about this, and he asked me to open a bug so that he
can track this and fix it.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 murf - 09-05-07 09:22  
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Actually, the comments being lost/eaten here aren't at the end of the
line,
they are at the end of the file.

The algorithm collects comments, and attaches them to the next following
object, doing its best to keep any involved newlines. The comments at the
end of a file, with no following "object", were lost.

bkruse: The API doesn't allow (afaics) any way to attach/detach comments
from an object. If you really want/need to, you might invent some really
nifty, easy to follow, way to do this, both in the API and in the GUI.

The two objects in a config file to which you can attach comments are the
category decls (e.g. [general] ), and variable decls  (e.g. 
host=20.30.40.200),
and now, with the fix soon to be added, there will be 3 flavors of
comment:
   a. comments preceeding the object;
   b. comments following the object, but on the same line.
   c. comments following the object. (The reader will only attach the
comments after the last object in a file) (but theoretically, any object
can have trailing comments). If you attach trailing comments to an object,
that is not the last object in the file, then, when you write out that
config file, and read it back in, you will see that those comments have
slid back to the following objects' preceeding comment set.

The whole idea of attaching comments to objects was introduced by Mark in
the original code; I just fleshed it out and expanded on the idea. If I
tried to make comments a full-fledged object in its own right, then there'd
be a ton of objects to ignore in places all over the code, a real mess.

Tracking blank lines is a different issue, I'll attack that (as best I
can) in 10642.


Comments come in 3 types also:

  a. preceeded by a ;, they go the end of the line
  b. from  ;--  to  --;  (may be multiline comments)
  c. ;! comments go to the end of a line, but are discarded by the
reader.
     (this way, we can insert generated headers that won't accumulate
forever).

I would probably hide type (c) from users, tho.
Hope this helped! 

Issue History 
Date Modified   Username       Field                    Change               
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09-05-07 09:22  murf           Note Added: 0069970                          
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