Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] plugins version-subdirectory: Why?

[Lars Roland <lars.roland@xxxxxxx>]

Lars Ruoff schrieb:
> > From: "Ulf Lamping" <ulf.lamping@xxxxxx>
> >
> > Summarize: Unless we have a reliable method of detecting a plugin API
> > version conflict (and I currently don't know a simple way doing this),
> > we shouldn't change it the way described for the reasons above. *If* we
> > have a method of detecting it, there would be no need for versioning the
> > plugin API at all.
>
> Full Ack!
>
> Why cant we just define a plugin API version number, independently of the
> Ethereal version.
> And each plugin should define (a function that returns) the API plugin
> version it was developed for. If the two dont match the plugin isn't loaded
> (with a warning message displayed).
Good idea.
How about using additionally a perl script, to scan for changes in the 
plugin api. If it detects changes, it should exit with an error. Then we 
make the buildbot run this perl script reporting any errors.

We have a list of exported symbols in libethereal.def. We would have to 
look for the declarations of these symbols in all header files in /epan 
and subdirectories.
Then we compare the actual declarations with a declarations in a 
reference file, which is just an older output of this script.
If a difference is detected, the script output suggests to update the 
reference file and the "plugin api version number" in the svn tree and 
exits with an error.

BTW, as already suggested by Ulf, it is time to retire the old api. If 
time permits, I'd like to do the final changes this evening.

Regards,
Lars Roland