[FEATURE request] Command-line interface and language-agnostic configuration language

[SamuelMarks]

For use in other languages, it would be great to expose a C FFI and (more easily done first) a CLI interface with a language-agnostic configuration language, something like:

# Global to all service-manager-rs
constants: &global_const
   ${if_win}:
      exe: ".exe"
   ${if_not_win}:
      exe: ""

Then you'd roughly have:

name: service_name
constants: &constants
    prefix:
        ${if_win}:
            "%TMP%\foo"
        ${if_not_win}:
            "/tmp/foo"
lifecycle:
   start:  my_init*global_const.exe --prefix *constants.prefix start
   reload: my_init*global_const.exe --prefix *constants.prefix reload
   stop:   my_init*global_const.exe --prefix *constants.prefix stop

Which could be used like so:

$ server-manager install -c "my_yaml_file.yml"
$ server-manager remove "service_name"

And alternatively be specified all at the CLI:

$ server-manager install "my_init" --start "my_init start" --reload "my_init reload" --stop "my_init stop"
$ server-manager remove  "my_init"

[chipsenkbeil]

@SamuelMarks I use this library in some of my own CLI tools. Do you see there being much demand for a standalone CLI that offers the functionality you described? Is yaml the popular configuration language to use?

This wouldn't take very long to implement, but thinking of the value here.

[SamuelMarks]

@chipsenkbeil YAML is pretty popular, as is TOML, JSON and what-have-you. YAML seemed like the simplest syntax to get this example working for you.

I think a CLI would create a whole of new use-cases. For example, I'm working on a large number of new package-managers; originally written in C; then Go; and now Rust (also ² & ³).

(but for outside contributors I wouldn't want to limit their implementation language)

If you think about what is required to build a package manager, it is:

0. Download
1. Extract
2. Dependency resolution (libsolv I guess works here - is open-source and cross-platform [even to Windows])
3. "Install"
4. Verification (for download, extract, dependency-resolution, install)

Now the install step might also involve installing services. I haven't seen any other project like yours which does it in such a cross-platform manner.

Kudos!

So what do you think; have I made a sufficient case for being language agnostic and/or creating C bindings? =)

Thanks for your consideration

[SamuelMarks]

FYI: @chipsenkbeil planning to send a PR sometime this week… started working on https://github.com/SamuelMarks/service-manager-ctl ~yesterday

(I want to get rid of all my custom structs and just add clap derives directly to your library)