[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#527741: fdi: "else" actions for <match>

[martin f krafft]

Package: hal
Version: 0.5.12~git20090406.46dc48-2
Severity: wishlist

I understand that to do an if-type construct in an FDI file, you
need to use <match>.

I also understand that there is no logical AND construct, so the
only way to limit an instruction to two criteria is through nesting:

  <match ...>
    <match ...>
      // do stuff here
    </match>
  </match>

What I am missing is some sort of sensible "else"-type construct,
e.g. to be able to say "if this keyboard is of type 'blue' by vendor
'IBM', then do this, else do this".

Right now, it seems I have to duplicate a lot of code:

  <match ...>
    <match ...>
      // do stuff here
    </match>
    <match not ...>
      // do other stuff here
    </match>
  </match>
  <match not ...>
    do the same other stuff here
  </match>

Maybe I am overlooking something, but an else-type construct, and
possible AND/OR operators would be really helpful. If that's not
feasible with XML, maybe XML isn't the right format for
a configuration file?

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.29-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages hal depends on:
ii  acl          2.2.47-2                    Access control list utilities
ii  adduser      3.110                       add and remove users and groups
ii  consolekit   0.3.0-2                     framework for defining and trackin
ii  dbus         1.2.12-1                    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  hal-info     20090309-1                  Hardware Abstraction Layer - fdi f
ii  libc6        2.9-7                       GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libdbus-1-3  1.2.12-1                    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib 0.80-3                      simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libexpat1    2.0.1-4                     XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii  libgcc1      1:4.4.0-1~exp2              GCC support library
ii  libglib2.0-0 2.20.1-1                    The GLib library of C routines
ii  libhal-stora 0.5.12~git20090406.46dc48-2 Hardware Abstraction Layer - share
ii  libhal1      0.5.12~git20090406.46dc48-2 Hardware Abstraction Layer - share
ii  libpolkit2   0.9-3                       library for accessing PolicyKit
ii  libsmbios2   2.0.3.dfsg-1                Provide access to (SM)BIOS informa
ii  libstdc++6   4.3.3-8                     The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libusb-0.1-4 2:0.1.12-13                 userspace USB programming library
ii  libvolume-id 0.141-1                     libvolume_id shared library
ii  lsb-base     3.2-22                      Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  mount        2.13.1.1-1                  Tools for mounting and manipulatin
ii  pciutils     1:3.1.2-3                   Linux PCI Utilities
ii  pm-utils     1.2.5-2                     utilities and scripts for power ma
ii  policykit    0.9-3                       framework for managing administrat
ii  udev         0.141-1                     /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
ii  usbutils     0.73-10                     Linux USB utilities

Versions of packages hal recommends:
ii  eject           2.1.5+deb1+cvs20081104-6 ejects CDs and operates CD-Changer
ii  libsmbios-bin   2.0.3.dfsg-1             Provide access to (SM)BIOS informa

Versions of packages hal suggests:
pn  gnome-device-manager          <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information


-- 
 .''`.   martin f. krafft <madduck at d.o>      Related projects:
: :'  :  proud Debian developer               http://debiansystem.info
`. `'`   http://people.debian.org/~madduck    http://vcs-pkg.org
  `-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
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