Re: .so versions

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Sun, 2007-07-15 at 01:05 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
> Le samedi 14 juillet 2007, �2:01 -0600, Elijah Newren a �it :
> > On 7/13/07, Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com> wrote:
> > > I've stopped changing the --version-info in gtkmm at all since a couple
> > > of years ago to avoid problems, but I'd really like a simple set of
> > > instructions about what to do in our most common cases, with examples of
> > > actual --version-info numbers before and after.
> > 
> > Yes, this is badly needed, IMO.  I've had complaints that I changed
> > libwnck .so versions too much.  But I couldn't figure it out from the
> > comments in various configure.(ac|in) files either.
> 
> Here's what is in gnome-panel:
> 
> # Before making a release, the LT_VERSION string should be modified.
> # The string is of the form C:R:A.
> # - If interfaces have been changed or added, but binary compatibility has
> #   been preserved, change to C+1:0:A+1
> # - If binary compatibility has been broken (eg removed or changed interfaces)
> #   change to C+1:0:0
> # - If the interface is the same as the previous version, change to C:R+1:A
> 
> LIB_PANEL_APPLET_LT_VERSION=2:20:2
> 
> libwnck has some similar comments, but they're less clear (IMHO).
> 
> Murray, is this set of instructions clear enough?

Not really. That's my point. This is difficult to follow and easy to get
wrong and it's not clear that it's not the same as the actual .so
version. Hence why we so many GNOME modules either don't change this or
apparently change it in ways that people don't like.

I think that part of that explanation should be stating that this number
(the --version-info) number has little relation to the actual .so number
that will be generated from it. Some explanation of the .so number
system would be useful too. I think we need both.

And to make it absolutely clear, we should have examples of the
situations that I mentioned.

> > Going one step further...it'd also be really nice to have some
> > automated tool to verify whether I made the right changes.  (Perhaps
> > that could be run as part of make distcheck?)
> 
> 100% agree. I believe some packagers are running some test to see if the
> API or ABI has changed. We could perhaps start from this?
> 
> Vincent

-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com