[OpenSIPS-Users] RFC: text pre-processing in OpenSIPS cfg file

Wed Apr 11 17:57:59 CEST 2012

Bogdan,

 You are absolutely correct about developmental resources and the
limited availability of them. Thinking this in to account I think what
would be needed isn't something complex, and things like substitutions,
that just does not make sense to me. Whats missing is something simple like
defines and if statements to switch things on/off based on defines or
command line arguments. Flipping the question, what kind
of functionality could be implemented with a day? This kind of feature
needs a developmental time limit, or maybe even just some time to write a
spec and let someone else fill the request with a patch.

 I agree with the comment about m4 quoting. Maybe this can be achieved by
better integrating opensips with a preprocessor tool out of the box( be it
m4, cpp or gpp). There are several simple pre-processors (hopefully not m4)
that are available on most distributions via apt or yum or what have you.
This method was suggested previously and I think Brett just mentioned it
also.

Thanks in advance,
--Rudy
Dynamic Packet
Toll-Free: 888.929.VOIP ( 8647 )

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Bogdan-Andrei Iancu
<bogdan at opensips.org>wrote:

> **
> Well, it is not only about personal preferences and how is nicer,
> etc...you should consider also the required work to do - at the end
> somebody has to implement this. And my questions is: considering that the
> development resources are limited, does it make sense to invest them in
> just creating an alternative to something already existing ?
>
> Regards,
> Bogdan
>
>
> On 04/11/2012 05:04 PM, Ali Pey wrote:
>
> Saúl,
>
>  It's very simple to define a simple text pre-processor. It would be one
> with only basic text/macro replacement with no fancy features.
>
>  I can understand that it would make more sense for you to use m4, but I
> don't understand how this would stop you from doing that? Your personal
> preference doesn't have to change.
>
>  It's all about simplicity. It would make it one or two steps shorter,
> faster and simpler for people that are not quite familiar with m4 or have
> simple requirements. Not every user is an expert.
>
>  Ali
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 4:36 PM, Saúl Ibarra Corretgé <
> saul at ag-projects.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> On Apr 10, 2012, at 6:13 PM, Ali Pey wrote:
>>
>> > I also think it would be a great addition to have a simple build-in
>> text pre-processing. For more advance features people can continue to use
>> m4 as desired.
>> >
>>
>>  The problem is the word "simple" on your sentence :-) How do we tell if
>> a feature request qualifies as "simple" or not?
>>
>> For me, the config file is fine as it is. It does have limitations, but
>> m4 helps in solving them.
>>
>> > Regards,
>> > Ali
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Nick Altmann <nick.altmann at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Against for M4:
>> > Configuration file may not be generated properly from m4 file(s)
>> > sometimes (because missed errors in m4), then server cannot start in
>> > some cases. It's when m4 in init.d script. When cfg-file built from m4
>> > manually, it's uncomfortable.
>> >
>> > In my opinion, opensips is the most powerful sip server, so it should
>> > have both options. And users should make decision which to better use
>> > in each case.
>> >
>>
>>  You should not attempt to run OpenSIPS with the new generated file
>> before testing it, you may have made a silly typo and the server would be
>> stopped. You can do it in 2 steps:
>>
>> - Regenerate the cfg file from the m4 files and call use opensips -c to
>> validate the config file
>> - Restart the service if the config was valid
>>
>> >
>> > 2012/4/10 Bogdan-Andrei Iancu <bogdan at opensips.org>:
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > > I'm bringing here a discussion started on devel list, as I would like
>> to get
>> > > more opinions on the matter.
>> > >
>> > > The discussion started around the decision if makes sense to have
>> MACRO
>> > > substitution (as text pre-processing) directly in OpenSIPS,
>> considering that
>> > > right now M4 is heavenly used for this (as additional tool to
>> opensips).
>> > >
>> > > So, the debate was : have built-in text pre-processing versus using
>> M4 as
>> > > text processor
>> > >
>> > > Pros for M4:
>> > >     - no effort to develop extra stuff - just install M4
>> > >     - can do really complex things (more than only macros, ifdef,
>> include,
>> > > etc)
>> > >     - you can use it or not
>> > >     - easy to integrate with start / stop scripts
>> > > Against for M4:
>> > >     - need to be installed and integrated
>>
>>  I'm not aware of any system where installing m4 is troublesome.
>>
>> > >     - you may have a mismatch for the line number (if errors reported
>> in
>> > > cfg) between the .m4 file and .cfg file
>> > >
>>
>>  While this is true, you can look at the generated cfg file, and leaving
>> comments is also a good idea ;-)
>>
>> > > Pros for buit-in:
>> > >     - you do no need to install M4 at all (everything comes packet)
>> > >     - you may get accurate reporting on errors (for line in cfg)
>> > > Against for M4:
>> > >     - more devel work to re-implement macros, ifdef, etc
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > Now, I would like to get your opinions on that (you as opensips
>> users), to
>> > > see if we stick to using M4 for cfg pre-processing or there is a real
>> need
>> > > to have this functionality as built-in.
>> > >
>>
>>  As I said in the other thread I think that using resources for enhancing
>> the current configuration language is not a good idea. Ideally I'd like to
>> program my routing logic in a real programming language like Python, Lua or
>> Ruby not something totally different which newcomers need to learn and is
>> not a fully blown programing language.
>>
>> M4 is a powerful tool which can be used together with the current
>> configuration language to achieve all the requirements mentioned in the
>> previous mail, without modifying OpenSIPS.
>>
>> Maybe it would be a good idea to use m4 in the sample configs? Having a
>> opensips.m4 file with the main routing logic and some local.m4 file with
>> custom settings like DB configs, etc could help people get their feet wet
>> with m4. Even adding a "opensipsctl reconfigure" command could make sense,
>> it could just do the following:
>>
>> pushd /etc/opensips
>> m4 opensips.m4 > opensips.cfg
>> opensips -c /etc/opensips/opensips.cfg
>> popd
>>
>> So if there is an error you could see it before actually attempting to
>> run OpenSIPS with the change applied.
>>
>> Those are my 2 cents :-)
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> --
>> Saúl Ibarra Corretgé
>> AG Projects
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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>
>
> --
> Bogdan-Andrei Iancu
> OpenSIPS Founder and Developerhttp://www.opensips-solutions.com
>
>
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