[wpkg-users] Notification: New path definitions for WPKG 1.3

[Rainer Meier]

Hello everybody,

I have just committed a couple of enhancements regarding definition of paths to 
database XML files or directories. The new parameters in config.xml allow a much 
more flexible definition where databases (packages/profiles/hosts) are 
specified. Even multiple directories or files can be used. So it's not required 
any more to store the files in hard-coded packages.xml or packages/*.xml 
folders. Any path(s) can be specified now as well as HTTP URLs. Even mixed 
setups are possible. Just be aware not creating any conflicts of duplicated 
package/profile/host definitions just as you did already before.

The changes are 100% backwards compatible. Your config.xml does not need any 
upgrade if you don't want to use the new feature. However in the future I might 
drop support for *_file_name and web_*_file_name parameters as they can be 
easily replaced by the new [packages|profiles|hots]_path parameters.


Here's a change log:

NEW: Added possibility for flexible definition of XML database files in
      config.xml.
      packages_path      Defines path to one or multiple package XML files or
                         directories containing package XML files.
      profiles_path      Defines path to one or multiple profile XML files or
                         directories containing profile XML files.
      hosts_path         Defines path to one or multiple host XML files or
                         directories containing host XML files.
      The paths can be separated by pipe and list either individual XML files
      or directories which contains XML files. URLs can either contain paths
      relative to wpkg_base, absolute paths or or HTTP URLs. Please be aware
      that absolute paths to external SMB/CIFS shares are supported but you
      might have to make sure authentication on all paths is provided prior
      to WPKG execution.

      Also note that when using *_path settings WPKG will ignore the default
      XML databases. So if you use packages_path you might like to include
      the default databases as well. For example
      <param name='packages_path' value='packages.xml|packages' />
      is equal to the default setting of WPKG.

      Files will be parsed in the order they are listed in the parameter
      definition. Files stored within a directory are parsed in alphabetical
      order.
      Make sure not to have overlapping package/profile/host definitions as
      duplicated unique IDs might lead to unexpected/undefined results.

      Due to the enhanced flexibility of [packages|profiles|hosts]_path
      parameters it's deprecated to use an HTTP URL as wpkg_base as well as
      it's deprecated to use [package|profiles|hosts]_file_name and
      web_[packages|profiles|hosts]_file_name parameters. This simplifies
      configuration as you can now simply define wpkg_base to define the base
      for relative paths and then use [packages|profiles|hosts]_path to specify
      any number of relative, absolute and URL paths.

      Corresponding notes have been added to config.xml.



Testers welcome.

br,
Rainer