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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi all,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would like to add support for a ‘define’ directive to nginx, which will allow text substitutions during conf parsing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At this point I’m thinking about adding support only for simple macros – no parameters, no ifdefs etc.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before I start working on the code, I wanted to check whether this makes sense to you and whether you’ll be
<br>
willing to merge it (assuming it’s implemented well, of course).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A sample configuration may look like this:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">nginx.conf:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">define extra_log_args ‘$http_my_param $arg_some_arg’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">include child.conf<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">child.conf:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> '$status $bytes_sent $request_time "$http_referer" '<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> %extra_log_args%;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In terms of implementation, the define command will add the key/value to a new rbtree on ngx_conf_t.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In ngx_conf_read_token, next to the code that decodes \r,\n etc., the defined keys will be expanded<br>
to their values. Since the expansion is performed within an arg, this implies that a define cannot map to
<br>
multiple args – it will essentially be like an nginx variable except that it’s evaluated during conf parsing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">An example of a use case where this could be useful (from our production environment) –
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We have multiple types of nginx servers, for example, some serve vod content, and some serve live video
<br>
content. In addition to that, we have multiple data centers. The configuration of these servers is different
<br>
but there are many common parts. Our way to share these common parts is to create small shared conf
<br>
files and have them included by the server-specific configuration files. So we have <server types>x<sites><br>
root conf files that include other files. On each server, nginx.conf is a symbolic link to the root conf<br>
matching the specific server. In some cases, some internal conf file has parts that depend on the site,<br>
and the problem is that we don’t have a way to propagate the id of the site from the root conf to this<br>
child conf. We can probably do it with ‘set’, but that would be less optimal since there’s no reason to have
<br>
this value dynamic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Any feedback is welcome<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thank you <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eran<o:p></o:p></p>
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