735877 - Update syntax hints in pref files to reflect the fact that you can't use computed values (e.g. 2 * 4)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[Justin Lebar (not reading bugmail)]

See bug 732820 comment 24 -- using computed values (e.g. 50 * 1024) in pref files causes major bustage.

We should update the "syntax hints" section at the top of the pref files to reflect this.

Comment 1

[Justin Lebar (not reading bugmail)]

Attachment: Patch v1

Comment 2

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

I'd like to know *why* computed values don't work.  Is this not a vanilla JS file?

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to Nicholas Nethercote [:njn] from comment #2)
> I'd like to know *why* computed values don't work.  Is this not a vanilla JS
> file?

The file is not executed as JS, it's just simply parsed as text

Comment 4

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

> The file is not executed as JS, it's just simply parsed as text

Ah.  Maybe changing the suffix to .txt would help avoid confusion?

Comment 5

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to Nicholas Nethercote [:njn] from comment #4)
> > The file is not executed as JS, it's just simply parsed as text
> 
> Ah.  Maybe changing the suffix to .txt would help avoid confusion?

At the expense of an awful lot of bustage. Given the few cases that I've heard of this causing problems I don't think it is worth it.

Comment 6

[Justin Lebar (not reading bugmail)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/0eb8564567df

Comment 7

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0eb8564567df

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to Nicholas Nethercote from comment #2)
> Is this not a vanilla JS file?

It used to be before bug 98533 back in 2003...