Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v2 13/16] docs/devel/qapi-code-gen: Rewrite compatibility considerations

[Eric Blake]

On 9/23/19 6:44 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:

>>>> Worth mentioning that type names themselves are NOT part of the
>>>> interface, and may be freely renamed?
>>>
>>> Care to suggest a suitable sentence?
>>
>> Although member names within a type cannot be changed without affecting
>> compatibility,
> 
> This part seems redundant with the previous paragraph.
> 
>>                changes to type names themselves do not affect the
>> protocol.  As such, complex types may be freely renamed or refactored,
> 
> All types (enums, structs, simple & flat unions, alternates) actually,
> not just complex ones (structs, unions).
> 
>> such as splitting members from one type into a common base type, as long
>> as the resulting set of members remain compatible.
> 
> What does it mean for a set of members to be compatible?  We don't
> actually define that...
> 
> What about:
> 
>   Since type names are not visible in the Client JSON Protocol, types
>   may be freely renamed.  Even certain refactorings are invisible, such
>   as splitting members from one type into a common base type.

Seems reasonable to me.

-- 
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3226
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libvirt.org

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