> Is there a good reason to introduce XML?

It'll make it easier to introduce more configuration sections in the future,
as the community adds more features to InterBase.

For instance, if I want to add a client-access ACL (like Apache's
allow/deny) feature, I'd write code in the listener to read properties from
a section that I'd call <AllowHosts></AllowHosts>. In that section are
several parameters, some are mandatory, some are optional. Some have
arguments, some don't.

What we need for this is (1) a syntax in the config file that supports
adding new config sections and parameters easily and (2) a convenient
internal API in the server for people's new code to fetch parameters by
section and by name. Simplifying the programming of config entries would
probably promote use of them by folks who implement new modules.

I'm interested in writing the infrastructure for this enhanced isc_config
API. I've done a similar thing before, for the xconfig file parser of an
X11R4 server.

XML is just an arbitrary choice because it's an emerging standard for
extensible, structured, textual data. There are numerous existing tools for
editing XML data. Also, it'd add a certain trendiness to InterBase.

Bill Karwin