Facilitate switching users/config

[nichtich]

Working with multiple user accounts and configurations could be simplified. Right now I use something like

DIR=$(dirname $(wd config path)) wd config -j > $DIR/config.$FOO.json; ln -sf $DIR/config.$BAR.json $DIR/config.json

to switch between configuration $FOO and $BAR. I recommend to add commands:

wd config save <name>

to save current configuration to $(dirname $(wd config path))/config.$name.json and

wd config select [name]

to select a named configuration (interactively if no name was specified).

[maxlath]

what about having a --config parameter instead, to force alternative config resolution?

wb somecmd --config ./path/to/wb.config.a.json
wb somecmd --config ./path/to/wb.config.b.json

[nichtich]

This would be helpful in some cases but would require to specify the config file with each call. I normally call wb in sessions and/or scripts:

• set config
• perform some commands
• switch config
• perform some commands
• ...

Switching accounts is already described as restoring a backup:

cp config.json.backup $(wd config path)

But this requires to know the config file location. $(dirname $(wd config path)) seems like a good place to put config files.

I can also solve this with a shell script such as (not tested):

DIR=$(dirname $(wd config path))
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  ls "$DIR"/config.*.json
else
  CFG="$DIR/config.$1.json"
  if [ -e "$CFG" ]; then
    cp  "$CFG" "$CFG" "$DIR/config.json"
  fi
fi 

But I thought this feature may also be of use for others.

[maxlath]

that could work well with aliases

alias wda="wd --config ~/.config/wikibase-cli/config.a.json"
alias wdb="wd --config ~/.config/wikibase-cli/config.b.json"

wda set-label Q4115189 en foo

[maxlath]

or we could look for the WB_CONFIG environment variable, like we already do for WB_INSTANCE and others

[RogueScholar]

or we could look for the WB_CONFIG environment variable, like we already do for WB_INSTANCE and others

This is what I just came here looking for. If you were waiting to see how much demand there is for this, @maxlath, please add my name to the tally of proponents. 👍🏻

[maxlath]

So I implemented both the --config option and the WB_CONFIG env variable, see docs. Published in v18.3.0. Let me know if you encounter any problem