[libcxx-commits] [libcxx] [libc++] Move the availability documentation to a design document (PR #169371)

Mon Nov 24 09:20:10 PST 2025

https://github.com/philnik777 created https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/pull/169371

We have quite a bit of documentation inside `<__configuration/availability.h>` about the availability markups. This documentation would be better to have as part of our general documentation to improve discorverability. A link to the new location is added to `<__configuration/availability.h>` as well.


>From c81b2df91f05290923743841e758c58e47a62e60 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Nikolas Klauser <nikolasklauser at berlin.de>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2025 18:18:32 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] [libc++] Move the availability documentation to a design
 document

---
 libcxx/docs/DesignDocs/Availability.rst       | 44 ++++++++++++++++
 libcxx/docs/index.rst                         |  1 +
 libcxx/include/__configuration/availability.h | 50 +------------------
 3 files changed, 46 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 libcxx/docs/DesignDocs/Availability.rst

diff --git a/libcxx/docs/DesignDocs/Availability.rst b/libcxx/docs/DesignDocs/Availability.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..461d23106ff7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/libcxx/docs/DesignDocs/Availability.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+
+====================
+Availability markups
+====================
+
+Libc++ is shipped by various vendors. In particular, it is used as a system library on macOS, iOS and other Apple
+platforms. In order for users to be able to compile a binary that is intended to be deployed to an older version of a
+platform, Clang provides `availability attributes <https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AttributeReference.html#availability>`_.
+These attributes can be placed on declarations and are used to describe the life cycle of a symbol in the library.
+
+The main goal is to ensure a compile-time error if a symbol that hasn't been introduced in a previously released library
+is used in a program that targets that previously released library. Normally, this would be a load-time error when one
+tries to launch the program against the older library.
+
+For example, the filesystem library was introduced in the dylib in LLVM 9. On Apple platforms, this corresponds to
+macOS 10.15. If a user compiles on a macOS 10.15 host but targets macOS 10.13 with their program, the compiler would
+normally not complain (because the required declarations are in the headers), but the dynamic loader would fail to find
+the symbols when actually trying to launch the program on macOS 10.13. To turn this into a compile-time issue instead,
+declarations are annotated with when they were introduced, and the compiler can produce a diagnostic if the program
+references something that isn't available on the deployment target.
+
+
+This mechanism is general in nature, and any vendor can add their markup to the library (see below). Whenever a new
+feature is added that requires support in the shared library, two macros are added below to allow marking the feature as
+unavailable:
+
+1. A macro named ``_LIBCPP_AVAILABILITY_HAS_<feature>`` which must be defined to ``_LIBCPP_INTRODUCED_IN_<version>`` for
+   the appropriate LLVM version.
+
+2. A macro named ``_LIBCPP_AVAILABILITY_<feature>``, which must be defined to ``_LIBCPP_INTRODUCED_IN_<version>_MARKUP``
+   for the appropriate LLVM version.
+
+When vendors decide to ship the feature as part of their shared library, they can update the
+``_LIBCPP_INTRODUCED_IN_<version>`` macro (and the markup counterpart) based on the platform version they shipped that
+version of LLVM in. The library will then use this markup to provide an optimal user experience on these platforms.
+
+Furthermore, many features in the standard library have corresponding feature-test macros. The
+``_LIBCPP_AVAILABILITY_HAS_<feature>`` macros are checked by the corresponding feature-test macros generated by
+``generate_feature_test_macro_components.py`` to ensure that the library doesn't announce a feature as being implemented
+if it is unavailable on the deployment target.
+
+Note that this mechanism is disabled by default in the "upstream" libc++. Availability annotations are only meaningful
+when shipping libc++ inside a platform (i.e. as a system library), and so vendors that want them should turn those
+annotations on at CMake configuration time.
diff --git a/libcxx/docs/index.rst b/libcxx/docs/index.rst
index d006b52f24cec..cc6f5d0cb310c 100644
--- a/libcxx/docs/index.rst
+++ b/libcxx/docs/index.rst
@@ -212,6 +212,7 @@ Design Documents
 
    DesignDocs/ABIVersioning
    DesignDocs/AtomicDesign
+   DesignDocs/Availability
    DesignDocs/CapturingConfigInfo
    DesignDocs/ExperimentalFeatures
    DesignDocs/ExtendedCXX03Support
diff --git a/libcxx/include/__configuration/availability.h b/libcxx/include/__configuration/availability.h
index 5433df872fa39..73a5a0ed2897d 100644
--- a/libcxx/include/__configuration/availability.h
+++ b/libcxx/include/__configuration/availability.h
@@ -17,55 +17,7 @@
 #  pragma GCC system_header
 #endif
 
-// Libc++ is shipped by various vendors. In particular, it is used as a system
-// library on macOS, iOS and other Apple platforms. In order for users to be
-// able to compile a binary that is intended to be deployed to an older version
-// of a platform, Clang provides availability attributes [1]. These attributes
-// can be placed on declarations and are used to describe the life cycle of a
-// symbol in the library.
-//
-// The main goal is to ensure a compile-time error if a symbol that hasn't been
-// introduced in a previously released library is used in a program that targets
-// that previously released library. Normally, this would be a load-time error
-// when one tries to launch the program against the older library.
-//
-// For example, the filesystem library was introduced in the dylib in LLVM 9.
-// On Apple platforms, this corresponds to macOS 10.15. If a user compiles on
-// a macOS 10.15 host but targets macOS 10.13 with their program, the compiler
-// would normally not complain (because the required declarations are in the
-// headers), but the dynamic loader would fail to find the symbols when actually
-// trying to launch the program on macOS 10.13. To turn this into a compile-time
-// issue instead, declarations are annotated with when they were introduced, and
-// the compiler can produce a diagnostic if the program references something that
-// isn't available on the deployment target.
-//
-// This mechanism is general in nature, and any vendor can add their markup to
-// the library (see below). Whenever a new feature is added that requires support
-// in the shared library, two macros are added below to allow marking the feature
-// as unavailable:
-// 1. A macro named `_LIBCPP_AVAILABILITY_HAS_<feature>` which must be defined
-//    to `_LIBCPP_INTRODUCED_IN_<version>` for the appropriate LLVM version.
-// 2. A macro named `_LIBCPP_AVAILABILITY_<feature>`, which must be defined to
-//    `_LIBCPP_INTRODUCED_IN_<version>_MARKUP` for the appropriate LLVM version.
-//
-// When vendors decide to ship the feature as part of their shared library, they
-// can update the `_LIBCPP_INTRODUCED_IN_<version>` macro (and the markup counterpart)
-// based on the platform version they shipped that version of LLVM in. The library
-// will then use this markup to provide an optimal user experience on these platforms.
-//
-// Furthermore, many features in the standard library have corresponding
-// feature-test macros. The `_LIBCPP_AVAILABILITY_HAS_<feature>` macros
-// are checked by the corresponding feature-test macros generated by
-// generate_feature_test_macro_components.py to ensure that the library
-// doesn't announce a feature as being implemented if it is unavailable on
-// the deployment target.
-//
-// Note that this mechanism is disabled by default in the "upstream" libc++.
-// Availability annotations are only meaningful when shipping libc++ inside
-// a platform (i.e. as a system library), and so vendors that want them should
-// turn those annotations on at CMake configuration time.
-//
-// [1]: https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AttributeReference.html#availability
+// Documentation for this utility can be found at https://libcxx.llvm.org/DesignDocs/Availability.html
 
 // Availability markup is disabled when building the library, or when a non-Clang
 // compiler is used because only Clang supports the necessary attributes.

