On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Galbavy wrote:
> I know this one has been on list before, but as they say, just because it's
> there doesn't mean you have to use it. Give us the rope and we will decide
> if we should hang ... please. I could be happy to not allow recursive
> includes - that should be a performance help.
In the "white paper" on Exim 4 I said
There have in the past been several requests for "include" facilities in the
configuration file. I've resisted on the grounds that this means reading more
files each time an Exim process starts up. However, people tell me that file
caching is very efficient, and anyway, nobody is forced to use the facility.
So I'm prepared to think about this one. A problem is what syntax to use. For
maximum flexibility, an "include" line should be allowed anywhere, so the
syntax must, if possible, not conflict with anything that might be part of the
configuration. The only really safe thing is to steal a `comment' line. Would
it be safe to interpret lines of the form
#include /some/file/name
as "include" lines? Maybe two ## at the start would be safer? Any better
ideas? The ownership and mode of an included file will be checked in exactly
the same way as the main configuration file.
Subsequently there was some discussion and suggestions of $INCLUDE or
.include. I haven't yet made up my mind as to which I prefer.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
