More powerful parser may be a possible solution. There are two options seen

1. Fully customised configuration grammar. In this case we are flexible with configuration file format. The parser can be written on Perl (YAPP+lexer routine) or on C (lex/yacc)

<var tpcc_warehouses>
range=100
</var>

<var tpcc_connections>
range=1,4,8,16,32,64
iterations=3
restart_mysqld=NO
</var>

OR just

var tpcc_warehouses
  range=100

var tpcc_connections
  range=1,4,8,16,32,64
  iterations= 
  restart_mysqld=NO

+ The most convenient format

- custom parser development is required

2. XML syntax:

It could be more readable and writable by humans:

- XML Format is not supposed to be used by human, I would not like to see it in manually editing config — Vadim Tkachenko 2009/01/21 04:45

<tpcc_connections
   range="1,4,8,16,32,64"
   iterations=3
   restart_mysqld="NO"/>
<innodb_buffer_pool value="3G"/>

But in this case we still should write code to parse data like “1,4,8,16,32,64”.

Or it could be more machine readable:

<tpcc_connections
    iterations=3
    restart_mysqld="NO">
  <range>1</range>
  <range>4</range>
  <range>8</range>
  <range>16</range>
</tpcc_connection>

+ Ready parser libraries

+ Syntax, structure, types, ranges, allowed values could be automatically validated with XML Schema

+ Easier integration with other software

+ Easy to extend

- Hardly human readable format

- Trade off between “easy to parse” and “easy to write/read by human” (additional parsimg of values like “1,4,8,16,32,64” may be required.

I both cases there two implementation options:

• Perl
• C language

TBD: pros and cons here