Re: [libvirt] [PATCH] virsh edit command

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 :-)