XErrorDB in a modular world

[Jim Gettys]

On Sun, 2005-06-05 at 13:04 -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> This bug notes that the requests and error codes for XFixes are
> not in XErrorDB:
> 	https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3021
> 
> This brings up another question - how should XErrorDB be handled
> in a modular world?   The current module of having a single file
> in xc/lib/X11 listing all the codes for all the extensions doesn't
> seem to fit well with extensions each being delivered separately.

True.
> 
> What if XErrorDB as a single file was replaced with a directory
> in which each extension installs it's own file as part of it's
> protocol module and the original XErrorDB was used for just the
> X11 core protocol entries?

I worry a bit about startup time for this solution.


> 
> Are there any other files like this that people can think of would
> need similar handling?

Not off hand.

The other approach is to have each extension deliver its snippet of file
into a directory, and the package install script (I think we can presume
package systems in this day and age), concatinate all of the files into
what actually gets read by the application.

The other issue we should think about more seriously is the I18N support
of this facility; error messages should be able to be localized.
			Regards,
				- Jim