[Python-Dev] Const-correctness in C-API Object Protocol
Stefan Behnel
stefan_ml at behnel.de
Tue Feb 22 21:48:51 CET 2011
Reid Kleckner, 22.02.2011 21:21:
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
>> Also changing it now would be a giant hassle, leading to so-called "const
>> poisoning" where many, many APIs need to be changed before everything would
>> again work.
>
> The poisoning will not break any users of the API, though, since they
> can pass const and non-const pointers. Internally Python would have
> to go through and add const keywords as appropriate when passing
> strings around. IMO it's worth it to not cause this warning for
> users.
The problem is that Python's C-API functions are used both internally and
externally, so changes like this can easily impact other public API
functions because the function being changed uses them. I think that's what
"const poisoning" refers to here.
Stefan
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