[libvirt] [PATCH] virsh edit command

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 05:17:55PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 05:09:37PM +0100, John Levon wrote:
> > Right. But to my mind you're fixing the symptom not the problem. *Why*
> > do they need to edit the XML? I ask this of everybody who complains at
> > me about having to edit XML: 99% of the time it's wanting to change boot
> > flags, but it's also stuff like turning off ACPI, setting on_crash, etc.
> > 
> > Editing XML is absolutely not user friendly, and adding 'edit' just
> > papers over the real problems IMHO.
> 
> I actually started at one point on a graphical libvirt XML editor,
> although I fairly quickly realised it would be a Sisyphean task
> because the format isn't tremendously well defined[1] and it keeps
> changing.  Also because there's a lot of overlap between virt-install
> and (potential) virt-config-editor.
> 
> I do genuinely think that having 'virsh edit' is better than the
> current situation.  Currently the advice that everyone gives is to do:
> 
>   virsh dumpxml foo > foo.xml
>   vi foo.xml
>   virsh define foo.xml
> 
> which is of course precisely the same as what 'virsh edit' does :-)

Yes, I think this command is worthwhile adding. We should also try to
address the problem that John raises too, but I see that as a parallel
task - and a far more involved piece of work to undertake :-)

Daniel
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