[dpdk-dev] ABI version of experimental libraries

[Ray Kinsella]

On 19/02/2020 12:43, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> 19/02/2020 12:43, Neil Horman:
>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 10:50:09AM +0100, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
>>> 18/02/2020 10:42, Bruce Richardson:
>>>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 12:15:56AM +0100, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I would like to remind everybody our mistake when defining ABI versions.
>>>>> It has been "fixed" in this commit:
>>>>> http://git.dpdk.org/dpdk/commit/?id=f26c2b39
>>>>>
>>>>> Please let's think about the consequence for the experimental libraries.
>>>>>
>>>>> In DPDK 19.11, we use the ABI version 0.200 with soname 0.20 In DPDK
>>>>> 20.02, we use the ABI version 0.2001 with soname 0.201 Numbers are
>>>>> increasing, that's fine.  When we'll switch to the new major ABI and use
>>>>> a normal numbering: In DPDK 20.11, we will use the ABI version 0.210 with
>>>>> soname 0.21 Numbers are dropping.
>>>>>
>>>>> In short, for experimental libs, ABI 20.1 > ABI 21.0
>>>>>
>>>>> Are we OK with this or do we prefer reverting to normal numbering for
>>>>> experimental libraries in DPDK 20.02?
>>>>>
>>>> Personally, I would not be too concerned about the verions of experimental
>>>> libs, so long as they don't conflict across versions and have some
>>>> similarity to the major ABI version for the release.
>>>
>>> You think sorting of the version numbers is not important?
>>> If we don't care comparing experimental version numbers,
>>> then OK, let's drop this patch. But please we need a small vote.
>>>
>>> Note: there would be no problem if we did not vote for having
>>> a special numbering for pure experimental libraries (I am still against).
>>>
>> I don't understand.  Why would we change the ABI_VERSION at all in an LTS release at
>> all?  This operation is meant to take an an experimental API and mark it as
>> stable by promoting its version number to the next major releases number.  As
>> such, in the LTS release, we should keep the soname the same, as there should be
>> no other ABI changes in the promoted API.
> 
> The library version number is updated because we add new symbols.
> 
> 

So while experimental library version numbers are not "important".
I do agree with Thomas they should be sane, increase and should have a consistent format.

Should we always just pad them to 4 places as the simple solution?
i.e.

DPDK 19.11 ... 0.20 (needs to remain 0.20).
DPDK 20.02 ... 0.2001
DPDK 20.11 ... 0.2100
DPDK 21.02 ... 0.2101 

Make sense?

Ray K