libiberty: hashtab allocation functions with an extra argument

[Phil Edwards]

On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 08:16:09PM -0800, Zack Weinberg wrote:
> DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com> writes:
> 
> > Changing the htab structure breaks backward compatibility.
> 
> I object to binary compatibility as a constraint on libiberty.  It is
> never built as a shared library, and even its static library is never
> installed anywhere, so enforcing binary compatibility is pointless.

I agree with all of your reasoning, Zack, but I would point out that
libiberty.a is installed by default.

Of course, libiberty.a isn't that useful by itself, since end users don't
have the declarations handy.  If they want to link against it, they have
to guess.  I added an --enable switch to additionally install the headers,
but I doubt if any coders are using it (besides me).

Until libiberty is installed as a shared library (which would be, as we
say in computer science, way cool) and versioned, there doesn't seem much
point in maintaining binary compatability.


Phil

-- 
I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, viz. "How
not to make a mess of it," has /not/ been met.
                                                 - Edsger Dijkstra, 1930-2002