Re: versioning

[Daniel Rall <dl...@finemaltcoding.com>]

Greg Stein <gs...@collab.net> writes:

> On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 09:16:24PM -0000, dlr@tigris.org wrote:
> > User: dlr     
> > Date: 03/05/19 14:16:24
> > 
> > Modified
> >  /scarab/www/
> >   project_docs.html
> > 
> > Log
> >  * www/project_docs.html
> >    Added a link to the new versioning strategy document under the
> >    "Standard specifications" section.
> 
> I'd be happy to fold considerations back into the original APR
> document. Some of your comments and ideas about data formats seem to
> be very applicable to the versioning goals. Ideally, if you had a
> patch... :-)
> 
>   cvs.apache.org:apr-site/versioning.html
> 
> If you don't think you'll have a patch, then maybe a short discussion?

In the above comment, Greg was referring to this document:

http://scarab.tigris.org/versioning.html

One key difference between Scarab's and APR's versioning strategy is
that Scarab (still in its early stages of development) currently does
not require formats to be data compatable across minor releases, while
APR's rules would likely require this.


* versioning.html
  Added a "Data Compatability" section in the vein of the existing
  Source and Binary sections.

Index: versioning.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/cvspublic/apr-site/versioning.html,v
retrieving revision 1.6
diff -u -u -r1.6 versioning.html
--- versioning.html	27 Feb 2003 05:09:12 -0000	1.6
+++ versioning.html	26 Jun 2003 02:06:02 -0000
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
       <li><a href="#basics">The Basics</a></li>
       <li><a href="#source">Source Compatibility</a></li>
       <li><a href="#binary">Binary Compatibility</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#data">Data Compatibility</a></li>
       <li><a href="#examples">Examples</a></li>
       <li><a href="#strategy">Strategy</a></li>
       <li><a href="#vsncheck">Version Checking</a></li>
@@ -75,6 +76,19 @@
       linkable against later versions (unless the major number
       changes). It is possible that an application will not be able to
       successfully link against a previous minor version.
+    </p>
+
+    <h2><a name="data">Data Compatibility</a></h2>
+    <p>
+      We define "data compatible" to mean that an application will
+      continue to function without error, and though a data format's
+      semantics could be expanded upon, they must retain as a subset
+      the semantics of the previous version.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Applications that use the format of a particular version will
+      remain data-compatible against later versions, until the major
+      number changes.
     </p>
 
     <h2><a name="examples">Examples</a></h2>

-- 

Daniel Rall