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<section id="api-stability">
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<h1>API Stability<a class="headerlink" href="#api-stability" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h1>
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<section id="api-and-abi">
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<h2>API and ABI<a class="headerlink" href="#api-and-abi" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
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<p>At a high level, an API – Application Programming Interface – is the boundary
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between two components when developing against them. It is closely related to an
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ABI – Application Binary Interface – which is the boundary at runtime. It
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defines the possible ways in which other components can interact with a
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component. More concretely, this normally means the C headers of a library form
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its API, and compiled library symbols its ABI. The difference between an API and
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ABI is given by compilation of the code: there are certain things in a C header,
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such as #defines, which can cause a library’s API to change without changing its
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ABI. But these differences are mostly academic, and for all practical purposes,
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API and ABI can be treated interchangeably.</p>
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<p>Examples of API-incompatible changes to a C function would be to add a new
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parameter, change the function’s return type, or remove a parameter.</p>
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<p>However, many other parts of a project can form an API. If a daemon exposes
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itself on D-Bus, the interfaces exported there form an API. Similarly, if a C
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API is exposed in higher level languages by use of GIR, the GIR file forms
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||
another API — if it changes, any higher level code using it must also change.</p>
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<p>Other examples of more unusual APIs are configuration file locations and
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formats, and GSettings schemas. Any changes to these could require code using
|
||
your library to change.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="stability">
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<h2>Stability<a class="headerlink" href="#stability" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
|
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<p>API stability refers to some level of guarantee from a project that its API will
|
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only change in defined ways in the future, or will not change at all. Generally,
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||
an API is considered ‘stable’ if it commits to backwards-compatibility (defined
|
||
below); but APIs could also commit to being unstable or even
|
||
forwards-compatible. The purpose of API stability guarantees is to allow people
|
||
to use your project from their own code without worrying about constantly
|
||
updating their code to keep up with API changes. Typical API stability
|
||
guarantees mean that code which is compiled against one version of a library
|
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will run without problems against all future versions of that library with the
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same major version number — or similarly that code which runs against a daemon
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will continue to run against all future versions of that daemon with the same
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||
major version number.</p>
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<p>It is possible to apply different levels of API stability to components within a
|
||
project. For example, the core functions in a library could be stable, and hence
|
||
their API left unchanged in future; while the newer, less core functions could
|
||
be left unstable and allowed to change wildly until the right design is found,
|
||
at which point they could be marked as stable.</p>
|
||
<p>Several types of stability commonly considered:</p>
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<dl class="simple">
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<dt><em>unstable</em></dt><dd><p>The API could change or be removed in future.</p>
|
||
</dd>
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||
<dt><em>backwards compatible</em></dt><dd><p>Only changes which permit code compiled against the unmodified API to continue
|
||
running against the modified API are allowed (for example, functions cannot be
|
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removed).</p>
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</dd>
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<dt><em>forwards compatible</em></dt><dd><p>Only changes which permit code compiled against the modified API to run
|
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against the unmodified API are allowed (for example, functions cannot be
|
||
added).</p>
|
||
</dd>
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<dt><em>totally stable</em></dt><dd><p>No changes are allowed to the API, only to the implementation.</p>
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||
</dd>
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</dl>
|
||
<p>Typically, projects commit to backwards-compatibility when they say an API is
|
||
‘stable’. Very few projects commit to total stability because it would prevent
|
||
almost all further development of the project.</p>
|
||
</section>
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||
<section id="versioning">
|
||
<h2>Versioning<a class="headerlink" href="#versioning" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
|
||
<p>API stability guarantees are strongly linked to project versioning; both package
|
||
versioning and libtool versioning. Libtool versioning exists entirely for the
|
||
purpose of tracking ABI stability, and is explained in detail on the Autotools
|
||
Mythbuster or Versioning.</p>
|
||
<p>Package versioning <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">(major.minor.micro)</span></code> is strongly linked to API stability:
|
||
typically, the major version number is incremented when backwards-incompatible
|
||
changes are made (for example, when functions are renamed, parameters are
|
||
changed, or functions are removed). The minor version number is incremented when
|
||
forwards-incompatible changes are made (for example, when new public API is
|
||
added). The micro version number is incremented when code changes are made
|
||
without modifying API. See Versioning for more information.</p>
|
||
<p>API versioning is just as important for D-Bus APIs and GSettings schemas (if
|
||
they are likely to change) as for C APIs. See the documentation on <a class="reference external" href="http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-api-design.html#api-versioning">D-Bus API
|
||
versioning</a>
|
||
for details.</p>
|
||
<p>For GIR APIs, their stability typically follows the C API stability, as they are
|
||
generated from the C API.</p>
|
||
</section>
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Contents
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<ul>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">API Stability</a><ul>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#api-and-abi">API and ABI</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#stability">Stability</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#versioning">Versioning</a></li>
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