Re: [dpdk-dev] ABI version of experimental libraries

["Kinsella, Ray" <ray.kinsella@intel.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>
> Sent: Tuesday 18 February 2020 09:50
> To: Richardson, Bruce <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> Cc: Kinsella, Ray <ray.kinsella@intel.com>; nhorman@tuxdriver.com;
> bluca@debian.org; david.marchand@redhat.com; ktraynor@redhat.com;
> dev@dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: ABI version of experimental libraries
> 
> 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).
> 

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 pad them to 4 places?
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