[Caml-list] Re: 3.05 and future 3.06 binary compatibility ?

[Sven LUTHER <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 02:09:39PM +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote:
> > Will this 3.06 release be compatible with 3.05, or will we have to
> > rebuild all the libraries that were built with 3.05 for 3.06 ?
> > 
> > I know you strongly recommend that libraries are rebuilt for each new
> > ocaml version, but a parsing bug hardly seem to affect binary
> > compatibility.
> 
> It's a type-checking bug, not a parsing bug.  You're correct that
> fixing it is likely not to break binary compatibility.  
> 
> However, I have bad news for you: it turns out that the .cmi files for
> 3.05 have a different format than those for 3.04, and we forgot to
> change the magic number in .cmi files whose purpose is precisely to
> guard against using a .cmi file in an old format.  (The segfault
> reported by Alexander Voinov on this list was tracked down to such an
> undetected use of an old .cmi file.)  Hence, the magic number will be
> bumped in 3.06, causing 3.05-compiled files to be rejected.

Hello Xavier ...

I face a problem with the 3.05 debian package :

  o I had thought to wait for the 3.06 release, before all the libraries
    get rebuilt for ocaml 3.05/3.06.

  o In the meantime, i released a ocaml 3.05 package to debian/unstable,
    but by doing so the autobuilder try to build new versions of
    libraries against ocaml 3.05, which does not work, because of the
    build dependencies.

So, i face a problem, which can be solved by :

  o removing the 3.05 ocaml package (and upload it to
  debian/experimental) and keep the 3.04 package in unstable for now
  (note that experimental is not a propper debian distribution, just a
  place to put packages that cannot go into unstable/testing), and wait
  for the 3.06 release.

  o bump the .cmi magic numbers (i suppose you have a patch for that in
  CVS that i can use), and release a new ocaml package (3.05-2), then
  rebuild the libraries with build dependency on ocaml >= 3.05-2 and
  < 3.07, so that they will work with the current ocaml 3.05 and the
  future ocaml 3.06 when it is released. In this second case, i need to
  be sure that there will be no binary incompatibility between ocaml
  3.05 and 3.06, like you implied in your previous mail.

Anyway, it would be nice to know what the timeframe of the 3.06 release
is going to be, and if my assumption on binary compatibility is not
going to cause problems.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
> 
> I know you will hate me for this, but I really don't see any better
> solution.
> 
> - Xavier Leroy, who also spent a while rebuilding all his libs
> 
> PS.  Your mail had an invalid From address "root@iliana".  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Friendly,
> > 
> > Sven Luther
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