I agree with Ber. Look at phpMyAdmin, it has a pretty hardcore config file and guess what, it's all PHP arrays. It's simple, human readable, but requires no advanced functions to make it work, read, no overhead. So why don't we create the new file: module.meta (or module.info) and throw in it: module_meta() { return array( 'version' => '1.5', 'description' => t('This is a really cool module'), 'depends' => array('module1', 'module2', 'module3') 'template' => 'module.foo.tpl.php' ); } We can make the array as big or as small as needed and adjust hook_meta() as needed. This makes the most sense to me. I'm assuming these meta files aren't going to be that complex. Not only that, but it keeps Drupal consistent with the way everything else seems to work... arrays, forms api, yes arrays :-D ted