Re: Do symbols make sense for C++
* From: Russ Allbery, Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:53:04 -0800
> 4. Once I had a symbols file that resulted in a successful build and
> that I could have uploaded, I started thinking about how I was going
> to maintain it. With a C program, I would change the symbols file
> versions when the underlying function implementation changes in a way
> that may not offer eqiuvalence, similar to bumping shlibs. I realized
> that I was going to have no idea when that happened, and the only way
> that I would maintain the symbols file would be to either trust
> upstream to maintain ABI equivalence and therefore only change the
> symbols file when upstream changes the SONAME, or not trust upstream
> to maintain ABI equivalence and therefore change all the versions with
> each new upstream release. That gives me exactly the same semantics
> as a shlibs file, so what's the point in having a symbols file?
How many upstream are there that try to achieve ABI equivalence?
Usually people only try to achieve ABI compability, i.e. programs
compiled against the old version will work with the new one, but
there is no garantee that programs compiled against the new version
also work with the new one.
(And in that case the maintainer has to manually increase the versions
in the symbols file, just as they needed to increment the shlibs file
before (unless they used auto-updating by using dh_makeshlibs -V without
any version anyway)).
Bernhard R. Link
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