[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Best practices for handling API (not ABI) breaks?



Hi Daniel,

Daniel Burrows wrote:
>   I'm the maintainer of libsigc++-2.0, a typesafe callback library for
> C++.  Upstream has just released a new version, 2.2, which preserves the
> version 2.0 ABI but is not source-compatible: programs that compiled
> against the 2.0 series will break with this new release.  There are 114
> packages that depend on libsigc++-0, too many to do this just by bugging
> a few maintainers to recompile.

>   What's the best practice for handling this situation?
As everyone seems to be busy with other things: I do not remember which, but I
seem to recall a package doing the following, and it seems to be a good idea:
- Package the new with a new name for the -dev package and the same name for
  the library itself and
- prune the old library source package to only provide the headers and stick
  them in oldlibs.
Then you can
- at some point, possibly very soon, bug the lintian maintainers to include a
  warning for depending on it (there is a list, but it is not automatically
  updated),
- finally, when you think the time has come, file bugs.

Kind regards

T.
-- 
Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/


Reply to: