Re: libpq API incompatibility between 7.4 and 8.0

Hi Tom!

Tom Lane [2005-02-02 12:01 -0500]:
> Martin Pitt <mpitt(at)debian(dot)org> writes:
> > What would you propose as a solution?
>
> Do nothing.

That's unfortunately not an option.

> The problem you are raising isn't very serious since
> RPM-style installations don't support concurrent installation of
> multiple PG versions anyway. That being the case, it doesn't really
> matter whether 8.0 psql can use a 7.4 library or vice versa.

That's exactly the point I want to change for Debian, I work on a
structure which permits to run several clusters of different versions
in parallel (see [1]). We now have a /usr/lib/libpq.so.3 for 7.4, and
we can't have a _second_ incompatible /usr/lib/libpq.so.3 for 8.0.

Sorry, but that's just the way how shared libraries work. SONAMEs are
for API compatibility and it becomes _very_ hard to workaround broken
ones.

> To do otherwise would essentially amount to deciding that get_progname
> is part of the exported API of libpq forevermore.

That's not true. It must stay part of the exported API for SONAME 3 of
libpq, not for anything else.

> That's not something I'm willing to buy into. It was a mistake that
> it was done that way in 7.4, and I want to rectify that mistake
> before it gets any more entrenched.

Then please release 8.0.2 with a SONAME 4. Would you consider this?

Thanks a lot and have a nice day!

Martin

[1] http://people.debian.org/~mpitt/postgresql-ng.html

--
Martin Pitt http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer http://www.ubuntulinux.org
Debian GNU/Linux Developer http://www.debian.org