Unix Programming - Chapter10.Configuration

Chapter10.Configuration

Starting on the Right Foot

Table of Contents

What Should Be Configurable?

Where Configurations Live

Run-Control Files

Case Study: The .netrc File
Portability to Other Operating Systems

Environment Variables

System Environment Variables
User Environment Variables
When to Use Environment Variables
Portability to Other Operating Systems

Command-Line Options

The -a to -z of Command-Line Options
Portability to Other Operating Systems

How to Choose among the Methods

Case Study: fetchmail
Case Study: The XFree86 Server

On Breaking These Rules

Let us watch well our beginnings, and results will manage themselves.
-- Alexander Clark

Under Unix, programs can communicate with their environment in a rich variety of ways. It's convenient to divide these into (a) startup-environment queries and (b) interactive channels. In this chapter, we'll focus primarily on startup-environment queries. The next chapter will discuss interactive channels.