We use enums also when modeling JSON responses from our servers. To allow the server side to add new cases without breaking existing clients, we always add an `undefined` case to our enums. Binary frameworks might do the same when exporting enums. When clients compile to a newer version of the framework, new cases will be added and checked by the compiler for exhausiveness. The new version will still contain `undefined` though for the next binary / server-side change. Cheers Marc
Thanks for writing this up - you’ve explained a common concern in an interesting way:
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I think that this could be the crux of some major confusion, the root of which is the difference between source packages and binary packages that are updated outside your control (e.g. the OS, or a dynamic library that is updated independently of your app like a 3rd party plugin). Consider: 1) When dealing with independently updated binary packages, your code *has* to implement some behavior for unexpected cases if the enum is non-exhaustive. It isn’t acceptable to not handle that case, and it isn’t acceptable to abort because then your app will start crashing when a new OS comes out. You have to build some sort of fallback into your app. 2) When dealing with a source package that contributes to your app (e.g. through SwiftPM), *YOU* control when you update that package, and therefore it is entirely reasonable to exhaustively handle enums even if that package owner didn’t “intend” for them to be exhaustive. When *you* chose to update the package, you get the “unhandled case” error, and you have maximal “knowability” about the package’s behavior. It seems that your concern stems from the fact that the feature as proposed is aligned around module boundaries, and therefore overly punishes source packages like #2. I hope you agree that in case #1, that the feature as proposed is the right and only thing we can do: you really do have to handle unknown future cases somehow. If I’m getting this right, then maybe there is a variant of the proposal that ties the error/warning behavior to whether or not a module is a source module vs a binary module. The problem with that right now is that we have no infrastructure in the language to know this… -Chris |
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