Rationale behind naming "dot d" (.d) directories

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On Apr 22, 2009, at 10:33 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> The reason I ask is for a change I'm working on for the php5  
> extension ports. Currently, ports like php5-memcache just print a  
> message telling the user to add these lines to their php.ini:
>
> extension_dir=/opt/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613
> extension=memcache.so
>
> But php can be configured to look for additional ini files in a  
> certain directory. So I would like to modify the php5 port to do  
> this, and then modify ports like php5-memcache to just install a  
> file like e.g. memcache.ini which contains these lines. Then the  
> extension will automatically be loaded and the user won't have to do  
> it manually.

Sounds laudable, just as long as you also figure out how to undo this  
when the php port is removed.  Nothing worse than something which  
installs itself with side-effects yet fails to remove those side- 
effects when it's removed / upgraded away. :)

> Currently, the php.ini is in /opt/local/etc. This is a little out in  
> the open and I would like to move it into a directory of its own,  
> probably named for the port, so, say, /opt/local/etc/php5. This  
> would also be a step toward allowing php4 and php5 (and a  
> hypothetical future php6) to be installed simultaneously which is  
> desirable.

Sounds entirely reasonable.

> Now I need a directory in which php5 extension ports will install  
> their small additional .ini files. I don't think it should be the  
> same /opt/local/etc/php5 directory because php is set up to first  
> look for its one true php.ini and then load all the additional ini  
> files in a directory; this might cause php.ini to be parsed twice,  
> which is at best wasteful and at worst could cause problems.

How about having a "system" path of ${prefix}/etc/php5 and ${prefix}/ 
var/db/php5 for the additional bits?

>> Don't forget, /etc/rc used to be a single file...
>
> And indeed I wasn't looking: it *is* a single file, even on Leopard.

Sorry, brain-fart. I meant the /usr/local/etc/rc file - you're correct  
that /etc/rc remains still too historical to be replaced, though it  
certainly should be.

- Jordan