Hi all,

while working on bug #12603, I needed to improve the configuration file handling functions. I soon thought that it might be a good idea to move these important functions to a library.

If you like, please have a look at the attached perl file. This library is intended to replace the read/writehash and read/writehasharray functions in general-functions.pl.

I attempted to improve the existing functions while maintaining compatibily to the file formats. There are more checks to ensure that only usable data ends up in the files and CGIs. The former "hasharray" format has been extended and now supports CSV encoding. In addition, the library can be more easily tested and further checks can be added.

As this changes critical core functions, this library should be reviewed thoroughly. Please let me know if this is of interest and if I should submit this as a patch :)

Best regards Leo