Details
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Improvement
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Status: Closed
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Minor
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Resolution: Fixed
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1.3
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None
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None
Description
It would be useful to be able to specify URLs in configuration item values that are relative to the configuration.
A sample. I have the following files.
A/config.xml which refers to
B/specificConfigForB.xml which refers to
B/somefile
Now specifying the location of somefile in specificConfigForB.xml should be possible using a relative URL, such that it is possible to retrieve the absolute URL of somefile through:
a) the absolute URL of A/config.xml (e.g.: file:/c:/A/config.xml or http://A/config.xml)
b) the relative URL of somefile specified in B/specificConfigForB.xml (like <somefile>somefile</somefile>)
(1) One solution is to make it possible to find the location of the configuration file that specifies the relative URL. Or more general, commons config should know where a given configuration item is stored.
In this case it might be an idea to implement a getURL() on the Configuration interface which uses:
1. the absolute URL of the composite configuration file, (A/config.xml)
2. the relative URL to the specfying configuration file, (B/specificConfigForB.xml)
3. the relative URL specified (in B/specificConfigForB.xml)
(2) Another solution is to specify a special meta variable (like ${url}) that can be used to specify the location of the specifying configuration file wrt the composite configuration file. E.g. <somefile>${url}/somefile</somefile> would result in ../B/somefile.
(3) Another solution would be to specify a special attribute to indicate that the value specified is an URL. Like <somefile type="URL">somefile</somefile>.
The advantage of solution (1) is that no extra semantics are introduced to the configuration files. Furthermore, it might possibly be useful in debugging situations. The advantages of solution (2) is that in this manner other meta variables might be introduced. The disadvantage of solution (3) is that this one cannot be applied to property files.