[llvm-dev] An Update on the C API

[Philip Reames via llvm-dev]

+1

Philip

On 11/19/2015 01:56 PM, Eric Christopher via llvm-dev wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I wanted to send a follow-up mail to the C API discussion/BoF that we 
> had at the latest developer meeting and nicely hosted by Justin and 
> Juergen.
>
> We were able to reach consensus on a number of questions/concerns 
> about the C API so I’m going to go ahead and list them for posterity 
> and for any further discussion here:
>
> Stability Guarantees:
>
> The C API is, in general, a “best effort” for stability. This means 
> that we’ll make every attempt to keep the C API stable, but that 
> stability will be limited by the abstractness of the interface and the 
> stability of the C++ API that it wraps. In practice, this means that 
> things like “create debug info” or “create this type of instruction” 
> is likely to be less stable than “take this IR file and JIT it for my 
> current machine”.
> Release stability:
> We won’t break the C API on the release branch with patches that go on 
> that branch - in general.
> Exception: If we fix an unintentional C API break that will keep us 
> consistent with both the previous and next release.
>
> Including new things into the API:
>
> We’re going to adopt a policy of “if a particular LLVM subcomponent 
> has a C API already included, then expanding that API is acceptable”, 
> but we’re also going to institute a better policy of “please test the 
> API that you’ve just expanded”. Hopefully this will get the C API 
> better tested as time goes on to remove accidental breakage so that 
> any time we break the C API we know about it.
>
> Adding C API for subcomponents that don’t currently have one is also 
> fine, and the details of how best to do that should be discussed on 
> the mailing list as they come up.
>
> Documentation:
>
> We’re going to document this policy in the developer documentation. In 
> addition, any changes to the C API will require documentation in the 
> release notes so that it’s clear to external users who do not follow 
> the project how the C API is changing and evolving.
>
> What we expect this means in practice is that APIs like libLTO and 
> other APIs based on reading IR are going to remain highly stable and 
> that more wrapper like APIs (IR creation, etc) are going to both be 
> added and change as the underlying IR changes.
>
> Please feel free to follow up to this thread with any concerns.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -eric (with Justin and Juergen)
>
>
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