On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 14:11:14 -0500, Jeff Johnson wrote:
> Alternatively, if the API changes aren't seriously different, you might just
> as well add versioned symbols so that we can get rid of all this
> compat-baggage
> once and for all, and provide an explicit and trackable ABI in the same
> soname
> just like glibc does.
Eek no, please don't.
(a) It's not portable, so it means forking upstream
(b) Symbol overloading is confusing for people and practically nobody
understands how to select a particular version at compile time.
If the API changed that is essential otherwise you won't be able
to build apps using the older API on newer systems.
Actually providing one version per symbol though is a good idea (and it's
more portable), and hopefully more libraries will do it in future. The
benefits of providing multiple versions per symbol is something I was
never convinced about given the costs. Just provide two packages and
install them both.
