[wix-devs] WIXBUG3704 - Allow access to persisted variables from related bundles

[Ron Martin]

Jacob,

I am hampered by incomplete knowledge of the context. You mention the 
engine. So I understand that the context
is that an installation, update, or uninstallation is in progress. The 
variables we are discussing are the ones that
can be modified by the user through the UI. I'm sure that the fixed set 
of types to which you refer can be deduced
from documentation, even if it is V3 documentation. I have not use Wix 
enough to have all of these types memorized
and I'm too lazy to look them up just for the purpose of this discussion.

So I was thinking outside the box. In fact, I was thinking without a 
box. I was willing to risk being shamed for making
unwarranted generalizations. My mental model of extensions does not 
benefit from a good understanding of all the
existing extensions or the intent of the architect(s) who created the 
extension mechanism. This is how I learn.

Of course, "much easier" is an opinion. I was trying to convey what I 
was thinking, not what I know. Perhaps I need
to find appropriate phrases to make this clearer when appropriate.

JSON is certainly worth considering. It has advantages for things like 
dates, versions, and paths: things that can
be pre-parsed.

I'm trying to imagine using regedit to modify such a registry entry (for 
debugging purposes, e.g.).
How would this experience compare between the two approaches?

If registry access is buried behind a Wix API, what features would look 
different and in what ways?

Would the API user ask for something by name and discover its type or 
would he ask for a thing of
a specific type by name and expect success or failure?

Similarly for writing, would he specify the type, name, and value? I 
think that in the writing case,
the choice is clear: The type of the value should supply all the 
necessary type information.

This seems to leave a loose end if null values are allowed, unless 
concrete static typed null objects
are used to indicate the type while specifying null value.

How does this affect the reading API?

How does the choice of prefixed strings vs. JSON strings affect the API 
and vice versa?

JSON does appear to have a leg up on validation, but if I understand 
JSON correctly, aren't all of
the attribute validations carried around in each instance rather than in 
a schema?

Respectfully,

Ron

------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 5/4/2021 1:02 PM, Hoover, Jacob wrote:
>
> Unrecognized types?  The engine only supports a fixed set of types. 
> Extensions can’t define additional variable types.
>
> “Much easier” is an opinion.
>
> If we really want to go the string route, why not use a JSON object in 
> the registry?  We could then define it’s type and value, still live as 
> a string, and have a well defined structure to validate against.
>
> *From:* Ron Martin <cpuwzd at comcast.net>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 4, 2021 11:51 AM
> *To:* Hoover, Jacob <Jacob.Hoover at greenheck.com>; wix-devs 
> <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [wix-devs] WIXBUG3704 - Allow access to persisted 
> variables from related bundles
>
> Some of the things I thought about before making my suggestion:
>
> If all of the strings we store in the registry (in this context) are 
> differentiated by their first character,
> many new types can be added later if necessary. A single switch 
> statement can be used to separate the type. Unrecognized types can be 
> passed through extensions.
>
> The registry was not designed for flexibility or extensibility. Binary 
> data can be organized for
> straight-forward decoding, just as string data, but for debugging 
> purposes, it is much easier
> to decode strings than raw binary representation of multiple data 
> structures.
>
> Registry strings should not be used to store binary data in its raw 
> form because there is a
> potential for truncation when a null character is encountered. 
> Registry strings are constrained
> to UTF-16 with no encoding prefix.
>
> Ron
>
> On 5/4/2021 11:27 AM, Hoover, Jacob wrote:
>
>     easier to handle.
>
>     *From:* wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org>
>     <mailto:wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> *On Behalf Of *Ron
>     Martin via wix-devs
>     *Sent:* Friday, April 30, 2021 2:49 PM
>     *To:* wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org
>     <mailto:wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
>     *Cc:* Ron Martin <cpuwzd at comcast.net> <mailto:cpuwzd at comcast.net>
>     *Subject:* Re: [wix-devs] WIXBUG3704 - Allow access to persisted
>     variables from related bundles
>
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>