extension naming

php.internals

Lukas Smith

21 years ago
Hi, I guess xmlprci is following the mysqli example. I am not sure if this is a good idea to have new BC breaking versions of extensions append letters like "i" (aka "improved") to solve the namespace issue. So I would like to bring this topic up for discussion on this list before too many other extensions blindly follow this example, just because of the lack of a standarized alternative. Anyways I dont really know if anyone from php core cares about these kinds of topics so just tell me to stfu before we get a needless flame. The obvious problem is: What comes after "i"? How transparent is this naming scheme to the user? We had to address a similar problem in PEAR and we currently have the following regulation in place which is a solution which is not beautiful either: http://pear.php.net/group/docs/20031114-bbr.php I guess the only advantage to using letters to denote new major versions is that I dont know anyone else using "i" as a postfix like this. So we are less likely to clash with a theoretically possible xmlrpc2 standard if we were to use the more common method of appending numbers. Also while xmlrpci is only a pecl ext for now is seems like it registers a class called xmlrpc ("REGISTER_XMLRPCI_CLASS(xmlrpc, rpc, NULL, 0)"). I dont think this is a good idea either. regards, Lukas

Stephan Schmidt

21 years ago
Hi, Lukas Smith schrieb:
> Also while xmlrpci is only a pecl ext for now is seems like it registers > a class called xmlrpc ("REGISTER_XMLRPCI_CLASS(xmlrpc, rpc, NULL, 0)"). > I dont think this is a good idea either.
IIRC XMLRPCi strives to be backward compatible with ext/xmlrpc... But I agree that the "i" prefix is somewhat strange... Stephan
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Greg Beaver

21 years ago
Lukas Smith wrote:
> Hi, > > I guess xmlprci is following the mysqli example. I am not sure if this > is a good idea to have new BC breaking versions of extensions append > letters like "i" (aka "improved") to solve the namespace issue. So I > would like to bring this topic up for discussion on this list before too > many other extensions blindly follow this example, just because of the > lack of a standarized alternative. > > Anyways I dont really know if anyone from php core cares about these > kinds of topics so just tell me to stfu before we get a needless flame. > > The obvious problem is: > What comes after "i"? > How transparent is this naming scheme to the user?
Don't forget - extensions don't need to co-exist necessarily. If one is designed to replace the old one, it's fine to conflict. I would recommend that pecl actually look to make names more separate. The number solution works for PEAR because people can reasonably expect to use both the old and the new version of a script in the same file. This is not necessarily the case in PECL. I personally think the i postfix is an excellent choice :). Future revisions will suggest new names, sort of like the dom_xml to DOM extension. No need for anything standardized, since the Makefile process provides a centralized location for all things anyways. Greg

Andi Gutmans

21 years ago
Well it's a good question but I'm not sure how we'd call it. XML-RPC is already taken. Ideas? Andi At 09:11 PM 3/21/2005 +0100, Lukas Smith wrote:

Jani Taskinen

21 years ago
xml_rpc ? :) btw. What happened to pecl/rpc/* anyhow? :) --Jani On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, Andi Gutmans wrote:
> Well it's a good question but I'm not sure how we'd call it. XML-RPC is > already taken. > Ideas? > Andi > > At 09:11 PM 3/21/2005 +0100, Lukas Smith wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I guess xmlprci is following the mysqli example. I am not sure if this is a >> good idea to have new BC breaking versions of extensions append letters like >> "i" (aka "improved") to solve the namespace issue. So I would like to bring >> this topic up for discussion on this list before too many other extensions >> blindly follow this example, just because of the lack of a standarized >> alternative. >> >> Anyways I dont really know if anyone from php core cares about these kinds >> of topics so just tell me to stfu before we get a needless flame. >> >> The obvious problem is: >> What comes after "i"? >> How transparent is this naming scheme to the user? >> >> We had to address a similar problem in PEAR and we currently have the >> following regulation in place which is a solution which is not beautiful >> either: >> http://pear.php.net/group/docs/20031114-bbr.php >> >> I guess the only advantage to using letters to denote new major versions is >> that I dont know anyone else using "i" as a postfix like this. So we are >> less likely to clash with a theoretically possible xmlrpc2 standard if we >> were to use the more common method of appending numbers. >> >> Also while xmlrpci is only a pecl ext for now is seems like it registers a >> class called xmlrpc ("REGISTER_XMLRPCI_CLASS(xmlrpc, rpc, NULL, 0)"). I dont >> think this is a good idea either. >> >> regards, >> Lukas >> >> -- >> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List >> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > >
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Jason Barnett

21 years ago
...
>> The obvious problem is: >> What comes after "i"?
ii? iii? iv?
>> How transparent is this naming scheme to the user?
Well if it's a simple Roman Numeral system like what I've just done then we wouldn't really have an issue (except that it assumes people know Roman Numerals). Not sure if that's really the way you all want to go though. The nice thing about doing it this way: It's a distinctly different numbering system and it just-so-happens to fit in with what we already have. Besides I thought one of the P's in PHP was "pragmatic".
>> >> We had to address a similar problem in PEAR and we currently have the >> following regulation in place which is a solution which is not >> beautiful either: >> http://pear.php.net/group/docs/20031114-bbr.php
Yeah that does have a few pock marks :-/ As another alternative you could just make it really, really obvious that the newest version breaks BC by just shoving BC in there. xmlrpcbc1 xmlrpcbc1.x.y xmlrpcbc2 ...
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Wez Furlong

21 years ago
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:16:03 -0500, Jason Barnett <jason.barnett@telesuite.com> wrote:
> ... > >> The obvious problem is: > >> What comes after "i"? > > ii? iii? iv?
improved improved, improved improved improved improved very i means improved, not "the roman numeral i". --Wez.

Lukas Smith

21 years ago
Wez Furlong wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:16:03 -0500, Jason Barnett > <jason.barnett@telesuite.com> wrote: > >>... >> >>>>The obvious problem is: >>>>What comes after "i"? >> >>ii? iii? iv? > > > improved improved, > improved improved improved > improved very > > i means improved, not "the roman numeral i".
Well that may be have been the original intention. I have seen alot of people suggest going with roman numerals as a way to prevent collisions with other projects. It is an interesting coincidence. I am not aware of any projects who has used roman numerals so it will prevent collisions. However there is a good reason why nobody has done it: - its ugly - it gets verbose - the letter "i" isnt the most readable letter .. and several "i"s next too eachother are only making things worse. Then again like I said it does provide a solution to work around issues like how to deal with standards like: POP3 IPv6 Or products like: DB2 Doing the obvious and appending numbers will lead to problems which we addressed in PEAR by allowing stuff like this at the developers choice: 1. FooX 2. FoovX 3. Foo_vX Not particularily a perfect solution either. regards, Lukas

Sean Coates

21 years ago
Wez Furlong wrote:
>>ii? iii? iv? > > improved improved, > improved improved improved > improved very > > i means improved, not "the roman numeral i".
Not to mention the ambiguity present in: sean@iconoclast:~/php/cvs/phpdoc/en/reference$ ls -d *i *v fribidi hwapi iconv ingres-ii mysqli nsapi w32api S

Adam Maccabee Trachtenberg

21 years ago
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Jason Barnett wrote:
> ... > >> The obvious problem is: > >> What comes after "i"? > > ii? iii? iv?
j? k? l?
> >> How transparent is this naming scheme to the user? > > Well if it's a simple Roman Numeral system like what I've just done then > we wouldn't really have an issue (except that it assumes people know > Roman Numerals). Not sure if that's really the way you all want to go > though.
I thought it was US-ASCII with a starting offset of 9. :) -adam
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