Re: [Tracker] Changes in libtracker (dynamic service type validation)

[Martyn Russell <martyn imendio com>]

Ivan Frade wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>  A lot of tools in tracker-utils use the hardcoded ServiceType enum in
> libtracker (through tracker_type_to_service_name and
> tracker_service_name_to_type). It means when you add a new category in
> the daemon it is invisible for the tools unless you recompile
> everything.
>
>  To fix it, my plan is to retrieve those service types from the daemon
> (getting rid of the ServiceType enum).  To do this, i need to modify
> the libtracker API. Is there any problem with this? Is libtracker used
> by external applications or only by our tools?

I see 2 problems.

First we break ABI if we append the enum.
Second we break API if we remove it altogether.

Regardless of these two issues, application developers need some defined
way of identifying common categories ... like "Audio" and if we remove
that then it means ALL applications have to do special handling (as I
understand it).

I think we would probably want to keep some "base" service types as
"static" in the enum and possibly be able to extend it the way you
suggest Ivan. Not sure really.

-- 
Regards,
Martyn