[Lazarus] Why was XML format chosen for storing settings in Lazarus IDE?

[Alexander Klenin]

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 22:07, Alexander Klenin <klenin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 4) reading/writing code is ugly and full of duplication -- but this is
> a problem of Lazaurs,  not intrinsic to XML itself

[skip]

> Benefits of LFM vs. XML:
> 3) can be read/written directly to the object via RTTI, thus
> drastically simplifying read/write code
> (I estimate a few thousands lines of code might be eliminated from Lazarus).
>

To illustrate, here is a snipped of Lazarus code reading the compiler options:

  { Linking }
  p:=Path+'Linking/';
  GenerateDebugInfo :=
XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/GenerateDebugInfo/Value', false);
  UseLineInfoUnit :=
XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/UseLineInfoUnit/Value', true);
  GenerateDwarf :=
XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/GenerateDwarf/Value', false);
  UseHeaptrc := XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/UseHeaptrc/Value', false);
  UseValgrind := XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/UseValgrind/Value', false);
  GenGProfCode :=
XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/GenGProfCode/Value', false);
  StripSymbols :=
XMLConfigFile.GetValue(p+'Debugging/StripSymbols/Value', false);

and here is the corresponding code to write them:

  { Linking }
  p:=Path+'Linking/';
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/GenerateDebugInfo/Value',
GenerateDebugInfo,false);
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/UseLineInfoUnit/Value',
UseLineInfoUnit,true);
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/GenerateDwarf/Value',
GenerateDwarf, false);
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/UseHeaptrc/Value',
UseHeaptrc,false);
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/UseValgrind/Value',
UseValgrind,false);
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/GenGProfCode/Value',
GenGProfCode,false);
  XMLConfigFile.SetDeleteValue(p+'Debugging/StripSymbols/Value',
StripSymbols,false);

Clearly, those are not not the best examples of applying DRY principle ;-)

-- 
Alexander S. Klenin