[Python-Dev] binary incompatibility and tp_flags

[Greg Stein]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2000 at 10:26:54AM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> Greg Stein wrote:
>...
> > Actually, those flags should only be used if you are attempting to maintain
> > binary compatibility.
> > 
> > At the point where you say "okay. binary compatibility is hereby broken.",
> > then we go and remove the flags for the new structure members.
> 
> I can't remember anyone saying something in that direction.

Never said anyone did :-) ... just said, "*when* it happens, then we have
some stuff that we can clean out."

> > The last API bump was to 1009 for "Unicode API added". I'm not sure why
> > Guido bumped it since the *addition* of an API shouldn't create binary
> > incompatibility.
> 
> He bumped it so that extensions can switch on the API number
> and then decide whether to use the new API or not... there are
> extensions out there which want to be compatible to 1.5.2 *and*
> 2.0. E.g. my mx stuff has a special portability file (mxpyapi.h)
> which is meant to achieve exactly this...

Hrm. This is a bit weird then. Modules will produce errors when they really
don't need to.

I understand that it would be handy to say "hey, does the Unicode stuff
exist", but that same mechanism is going to produce errors at module-init
time when stuff is loaded.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/