Question

I have an application that adheres to multiple specifications that are very similar but require different verbs for identical actions. For example, one spec says jump, while the other might say hop.

I’m looking for something like CultureInfo (or possibly even CultureInfo but I feel that would be bad practice) to define these verbs. It must be configurable at runtime (spec change shouldn’t require a re-compile).

Answer 1

You could use a xml file in order to store the verbs

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<verbs>
    <verb name="jump", spec="spec1">jump</verb>
    <verb name="jump", spec="spec2">hop</verb>
    <verb name="consume_food", spec="spec1">eat</verb>
    <verb name="consume_food", spec="spec2">feed</verb>
</verbs>

or organized by specification

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<specs>
    <spec name="spec1">
        <verb name="jump">jump</verb>
        <verb name="consume_food">eat</verb>
    </spec>
    <spec name="spec2">
        <verb name="jump">hop</verb>
        <verb name="consume_food">feed</verb>
    </spec>
</specs>

Or use a different file for every specification

File: spec1.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<verbs>
    <verb name="jump">jump</verb>
    <verb name="consume_food">eat</verb>
</verbs>

File: spec2.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<verbs>
    <verb name="jump">hop</verb>
    <verb name="consume_food">feed</verb>
</verbs>

Finally, in a separate configuration file, define which specification was selected. It could be a plain text file containing just the name of the specification or it could be another xml file containing different application settings.

Personally I find it handy to use an old style ini-file. It is easy to read and to change, even by no-programmers.