Thanks sounds reasonable Colin. +1 to not using toString() as an API On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 9:57 AM, Chris Nauroth <cnaur...@hortonworks.com> wrote:
> I'm in favor of making a statement in the compatibility guidelines that > there is no guarantee of stability or backwards-compatibility for > toString() output. If a proposed patch introduces new dependencies on a > stable toString() output, such as for UI display or object serialization, > then I'd consider -1'ing it and instead asking that the logic move to a > different method that can provide that guarantee, i.e. toStableString(). > There are further comments justifying this on HADOOP-13028 and HDFS-9732. > > --Chris Nauroth > > > > > On 5/12/16, 9:32 AM, "Colin McCabe" <cmcc...@apache.org> wrote: > > >Hi all, > > > >Recently a discussion came up on HADOOP-13028 about the wisdom of > >overloading S3AInputStream#toString to output statistics information. > >It's a difficult judgement for me to make, since I'm not aware of any > >compatibility guidelines for InputStream#toString. Do we have > >compatibility guidelines for toString functions? > > > >It seems like the output of toString functions is usually used as a > >debugging aid, rather than as a stable format suitable for UI display or > >object serialization. Clearly, there are a few cases where we might > >want to specifically declare that a toString method is a stable API. > >However, I think if we attempt to treat the toString output of all > >public classes as stable, we will have greatly increased the API > >surface. Should we formalize this and declare that toString functions > >are @Unstable, Evolving unless declared otherwise? > > > >best, > >Colin > > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > >To unsubscribe, e-mail: common-dev-unsubscr...@hadoop.apache.org > >For additional commands, e-mail: common-dev-h...@hadoop.apache.org > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: common-dev-unsubscr...@hadoop.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: common-dev-h...@hadoop.apache.org > >
