On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> At 3:41 AM -0400 4/19/00, Robert Watson wrote:
> >I hope not to change the format any further. I've been considering
> >introducing a backing file header version number of some sort, but
> >this is only necessary if we think the backing file format will
> >change much more.
> >
> >Comments welcome.
>
> If you're going to change the header right now, then I would think
> it is best to add a field for version number. What you're saying
> is that "we will never ever have to change this format again", and
> that seems overly optimistic to me. I don't even know what this
> *IS*, other than you report that this change will cause "weird and
> unfortunate things to happen" for backing files created with the
> previous format. Any format where a change can cause "weird and
> unfortunate things to happen" should have a version number in it,
> in my opinion...
>
> What downside is there to adding a field for version number?
I came to the same conclusion and am about to commit the addition of a
magic number for sanity checking, and a version field in the file header.
I've spent the last twenty minutes trying to get the man page updates
right for some other parallel changes, but am still working on that. :-)
Should be committed shortly, as the changes have been working fine for me
for the past hour or two.
Robert N M Watson
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.watson.org/~robert/
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TIS Labs at Network Associates, Safeport Network Services
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