[LLVMdev] Undocumented API changes

[Owen Anderson]

On Jun 17, 2009, at 12:06 PM, Mark Shannon wrote:
> 2.
> The major CHANGE is:  the JIT will no longer be safe for executing
> threaded applications without first invoking llvm_start_multithreaded 
> ().
>  Please begin to update your client applications now if this affects
> you, as I will be throwing the switch in SVN sooner rather than later.
>

This one is necessary for the ongoing work to make the LLVM APIs  
thread-safe.  Because of portability issues (mostly concerned with  
differences between Windows and Unix-like systems), this is the only  
acceptable way we have found to ensure that the necessary guard  
structures are allocated and available when they are needed.

> Remember, its not just gcc-llvm and clang that use llvm.
>
> So please treat the API with respect.
> Don't change it often, and document EACH and EVERY change.

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here.  If anything, I've  
been very impressed in the recent days with the effort people are  
putting in to announce their API-breaking changes.  It's much improved  
from the old days of no notice breakage.

The API can and will evolve over time, and we're making efforts to  
make it easier for client programs to keep up by announcing API  
changes, including recipes for how to deal with them, in an obvious  
manner in advance of the change itself.

--Owen
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