Xapian::xapian_version_string(), etc

I noticed this footnote in deprecation.rst:

    .. [#version] The version functions will probably be
preserved for
    longer than the usual lifetime of deprecated features,
because it is
    unhelpful to remove functions which people use to test
the version
    of the library in use.  However, the replacements have
been
    supported for long enough that new applications should
use the
    replacement functions without worrying about old library
versions
    which don't support them.

I don't think there's a reason to support these for longer
than we might
otherwise actually.  These functions report the version of
xapian-core
that we're running with (which may be different from the
version that
we were built against if xapian-core is a shared library). 
But you can
only use an API compatible shared library, otherwise you
need to
rebuild, so you generally you'd use preprocessor checks for
compile time
selection of things.

You can also use preprocessor checks to decide which
function name to
call if you really need to check the library version
actually in use.
These functions were added in 0.9.3, and deprecated in
favour of names
with "xapian_" removed in 0.9.6, so this code will
work for any Xapian
version from 0.9.3 onwards:

#if XAPIAN_MAJOR_VERSION == 0 &&
XAPIAN_MINOR_VERSION == 9 && XAPIAN_REVISION < 6
    string version_string = Xapian:apian
_version_string();
#else
    string version_string = Xapian::version_string();
#endif

So I don't think there's a reason to keep these around
longer than we
would otherwise.  I think removing these in 1.1.0 would be
fine, and we
should suggest otherwise in the documentation.  Am I missing
something?

Cheers,
    Olly

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On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 12:55:40AM +0100, Olly Betts wrote:
> So I don't think there's a reason to keep these around
longer than we
> would otherwise.  I think removing these in 1.1.0 would
be fine, and we
> should suggest otherwise in the documentation.  Am I
missing something?

I'm missing a not:

[...] we should NOT suggest otherwise in the documentation!

Cheers,
    Olly

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Olly Betts wrote:
> So I don't think there's a reason to keep these around
longer than we
> would otherwise.  I think removing these in 1.1.0 would
be fine, and we
> should suggest otherwise in the documentation.  Am I
missing something?

No, I think your points were all valid.  I've just been
thinking in 
Python terms too much recently, where API compatibility is a
much more 
flexible thing.  But even in python, you could detect an
out-of-date 
xapian by catching the AttributeError when you try and call
the version 
function, so there's no need to keep the old functions
around indefinitely.

I've removed the comment from deprecation.rst, and I noticed
that I 
missed the xapian_version functions from the list of
deprecated 
functions in the bindings, so I've added them to that.

-- 
Richard

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