Lars Viklund wrote:
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 10:06:42PM -0800, Robert Ramey wrote:
Nikolay Mladenov wrote: As to why it's this way, the answer is pretty simple. The original version of the library has some errors. Problem is, fixing them is much harder than with other libraries because of the requirement to maintain the ability to read archives created with previous versions.
This is not an answer.
lol - I believe that the question was why this is the way it is. This is the simple answer.
Why was this code defined out, and what is solved by doing so?
If I recall correctly, the problem arose when a user started overload the version number which with other data - some sort of guid or date or something like that. The version number was defined as an integer (or maybe short integer) which these days in C++ is large enough to hold this kind of data. When made a change in the library to enforce catch more user errors, this problem came up. So I commented out the change. I believe that is how we got here today. (I could be wrong about this as I'm speaking from memory). So the current complaint is that the current library doesn't detect a particular type of user error which in principle it can but in practice never has. I could just change the 0 to 1 to re-enable the code but of course I'll then risk the ire of someone who has overloaded the version data type.
What _is_ the underlying problem, there is nothing in your message that explains why this happens.
The real underlying problem is the usage in C++ of int or short int as a datatype. I've come to believe that should never be done and is always a potential bug. I've resolved to avoid doing this in the future. In fact - this problem arose because of an attempt to improve the code by implementing this policy.
No-one goes around and disables code blocks for no reason, removing functionality.
lol - I had a reason.
I cannot trust a library that has secret known bugs, especially if it has a track record of messing up (like the forgotten version bump and all that).
lol - if anyone thinks they can do a better job - feel free to step up! Robert Ramey