GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 696412
Breaks ABI without bumping SONAME
Last modified: 2013-03-23 12:40:21 UTC
When preparing updated packages for Debian I noticed that many public symbols had been removed. This breaks ABI and the SONAME should be bumped when doing so. I investigated further and found out that there are many users of some of the removed API. :( For a list of the dropped API (which either needs to be restored or SONAME bumped), see: http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/experimental/gtksourceview3/debian/libgtksourceview-3.0-0.symbols?r1=37132&r2=37133
Ok, that's weird. Those are internal methods that were not exposed... In this release we extra marked them with G_GNUC_INTERNAL.
These private functions were exposed in the ABI, because they were not prefixed by an underscore. So it was possible to use these symbols by copying the private headers, but it's a really bad practice. I think a soname bump is enough. For this, the patch in bug #477709 could be useful. (In reply to comment #0) > I investigated further and found out that there are many users of some of > the removed API. :( Surprising! Can you easily list those symbols and the applications using them?
(In reply to comment #2) > (In reply to comment #0) > > I investigated further and found out that there are many users of some of > > the removed API. :( > > Surprising! Can you easily list those symbols and the applications using them? Only the users within debian.... http://codesearch.debian.net
I see not all symbols starting with a particula prefix was removed, maybe I cast my search too wide..... will look closer.
Looked over all symbols individually (boring as hell) and ignored matches inside gtksourceview2 and gtksourceview3 in the results.... Have to say I'm sorry. Doesn't seem like the symbols are used (inside Debian). Still, removed symbols should result in a new so version.... Sorry for severely inflating the severity of this bug. Will close it as INVALID. Would be happy if you could still consider bumping so version when removing public symbols in the future.... Removed symbols always makes me nervous.
soname version bumped. Thanks for the search and the bug report.