Contents

• Chapter 1  Introduction
  • 1.1  What is Config4*?
  • 1.2  Why Might You Want to Use Config4*?
    • 1.2.1  Benefits for Users
    • 1.2.2  Benefits for Developers
  • 1.3  The Collection of Config4* Manuals
  • 1.4  Structure of this Manual
  • 1.5  Obtaining and Installing Config4*

• Part I  Overview
  • Chapter 2  Overview of Config4* Syntax
    • 2.1  Comments, Variables and Scopes
    • 2.2  Copying Default Values
    • 2.3  Including Other Files
    • 2.4  Including the Output of Commands
    • 2.5  Accessing the Environment
    • 2.6  Temporary Variables
    • 2.7  The @if-then-@else Statement
    • 2.8  Conditional @include and @copyFrom
    • 2.9  Append Assignment
    • 2.10  Conditional Assignment
    • 2.11  Centralizable and Adaptive Configuration
    • 2.12  The uid- prefix
    • 2.13  Summary
  • Chapter 3  Overview of the Config4* API
    • 3.1  Introduction
    • 3.2  Parsing Configuration Files
    • 3.3  Accessing Configuration Variables
    • 3.4  Scoped Names
    • 3.5  Presetting Configuration Variables
    • 3.6  Variations of parse()
      • 3.6.1  Parsing Centralized Configuration
      • 3.6.2  Parsing Embedded Configuration
      • 3.6.3  Using Fallback Configuration
    • 3.7  Default Values
    • 3.8  Listing the Contents of a Scope
      • 3.8.1  Local and Fully-scopes Names
      • 3.8.2  Determining the Type of an Entry
      • 3.8.3  Filtering Results with Patterns
    • 3.9  Working with Uid entries
      • 3.9.1  Expanded and Unexpanded Names
      • 3.9.2  The uidEquals() Operation
      • 3.9.3  Processing Uid Entries in Sequence
    • 3.10  Schema Validation
      • 3.10.1  Informative Error Messages
      • 3.10.2  Schemas for Uid Entries
    • 3.11  Summary
  • Chapter 4  Comparison with Other Technologies
    • 4.1  Introduction
    • 4.2  Command-line Options & Environment Variables
    • 4.3  Writing Your Own Configuration Parser
    • 4.4  Java Properties Files
      • 4.4.1  Unwanted Whitespace at the End of a Line
      • 4.4.2  Lack of Syntax Checking
      • 4.4.3  Semantically Poor
      • 4.4.4  Type-unsafe Lookup API
    • 4.5  Platform-specific Configuration Files
    • 4.6  XML-based Configuration Files
      • 4.6.1  Verbosity
      • 4.6.2  Limited Functionality
      • 4.6.3  Checking the Correctness of Input Files
      • 4.6.4  Memory Usage
    • 4.7  A Critique of Config4*
    • 4.8  Summary
• Part II  Infrastructure
  • Chapter 5  Config4* Security
    • 5.1  The Need for Security
    • 5.2  The Config4* Security Mechanism
    • 5.3  The Default Security Policy
    • 5.4  Overriding the Default Security Policy
    • 5.5  Summary
  • Chapter 6  The config2cpp and config2j Utilities
    • 6.1  Introduction
    • 6.2  Basic Operation
    • 6.3  Using the Generated Class
    • 6.4  Tweaking the Generated Schema
    • 6.5  Summary
  • Chapter 7  The config4cpp and config4j Utilities
    • 7.1  Introduction
      • 7.1.1  Basic Operation
      • 7.1.2  Commonly Used Options
    • 7.2  The parse Command
    • 7.3  The validate Command
    • 7.4  The dump Command
    • 7.5  The dumpSec Command
    • 7.6  The print Command
    • 7.7  The type Command
    • 7.8  The slist and llist Commands
    • 7.9  Summary
• Part III  Full Details of Syntax
  • Chapter 8  Configuration File Syntax
    • 8.1  Introduction
    • 8.2  Comments
    • 8.3  Strings
    • 8.4  Identifiers
    • 8.5  Assignment Statements
    • 8.6  Scopes
    • 8.7  The @include Statement
    • 8.8  The @copyFrom Statement
    • 8.9  The @if-then-@else Statement
    • 8.10  The @error Statement
    • 8.11  The @remove Statement
    • 8.12  Functions
      • 8.12.1  Querying the Operating System
      • 8.12.2  Accessing Environment Variables
      • 8.12.3  Executing External Commands
      • 8.12.4  Manipulating Strings and Lists
      • 8.12.5  Files and Directories
      • 8.12.6  Miscellaneous Functions
  • Chapter 9  The Config4* Schema Language
    • 9.1  Introduction
    • 9.2  Syntax
      • 9.2.1  Identifier Rules
      • 9.2.2  The @optional and @required Keywords
      • 9.2.3  Defining a New Type
      • 9.2.4  Available Schema Types
        • 9.2.4.1  String-based Types
        • 9.2.4.2  List-based Types
      • 9.2.5  Using String-based Arguments
      • 9.2.6  Ignore Rules
    • 9.3  Using Code to Define Schema Types
    • 9.4  Summary
• Part IV  Effective Use of Config4*
  • Chapter 10  Best Practices
    • 10.1  Introduction
    • 10.2  Use a Top-level Scope for Each Application
    • 10.3  Naming Convention for Variables
    • 10.4  Fail-fast Configuration
    • 10.5  Zero Configuration
    • 10.6  Schema Validation for Fallback Configuration
    • 10.7  Working with Lists
    • 10.8  Use a Wrapper Class around Config4*
    • 10.9  Summary
  • Chapter 11  Demonstration Applications
    • 11.1  Introduction
    • 11.2  The simple-encapsulation Demo
    • 11.3  The encapsulate-lookup-api Demo
    • 11.4  The log-level Demo
    • 11.5  The recipes Demo
    • 11.6  The extended-schema-validator Demo
    • 11.7  Summary