[Zope3-dev] guessing where zope.conf is

[Steve Alexander]

Hi folks,

I'm making myself a kind of customized "zope 3 instance home" for a 
project I'm working on.  I've run into an inconvenience in how the 
system finds a zope.conf or zope.conf.in file.

In src/zope/app/server/main.py, the code looks for a zope.conf file in 
the directory:

     dir = os.path.normpath(
           os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__),
                        os.pardir, os.pardir, os.pardir, os.pardir))

That's basically $(zope.app.server.main.__file__)/../../../../zope.conf

The problem is that it is looking for a zope.conf file (which belongs in 
"server instance space") by starting off from 
zope.app.server.main.__file__ (which is in "python library space").  The 
guess will be wrong a lot of the time.

I propose that zope.app.server.main should not try to guess where config 
files live, but that it should always be passed a place to look 
explicitly.  The z3.py start script and any other start scripts should 
be responsible for working out what directory to look in, and passing 
this to zope.app.server.main.

-- 
Steve Alexander