From 13761120b1dbe126a9d39b9439086b76b4860b27 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jay Berkenbilt Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2023 12:20:23 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Enhance documentation about FUTURE build option --- manual/installation.rst | 9 +++++++-- manual/packaging.rst | 6 ++++++ manual/release-notes.rst | 4 ++++ 3 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/manual/installation.rst b/manual/installation.rst index cef2c9a5..52578dc2 100644 --- a/manual/installation.rst +++ b/manual/installation.rst @@ -279,8 +279,13 @@ BUILD_SHARED_LIBS, BUILD_STATIC_LIBS FUTURE This option enables changes planned for the next major release to be - included. These changes are ABI breaking and are subject to change. They - are NOT part of the stable API. + included. They are NOT part of the stable API. These changes are ABI + breaking and are subject to change, which means code linked against + a qpdf built with this option may not be binary compatible with + installed qpdf libraries. Set this if you want to test your code + with proposed QPDF API changes and provide feedback prior to the + inclusion of those changes in a release. Packagers should never + distribute backages built with this option. QTEST_COLOR Turn this on or off to control whether qtest uses color in its diff --git a/manual/packaging.rst b/manual/packaging.rst index 1bd89758..ca32554a 100644 --- a/manual/packaging.rst +++ b/manual/packaging.rst @@ -26,6 +26,12 @@ particularly useful to packagers. combined with either ``ctest --verbose`` or ``ctest --output-on-failure``. +- Packagers should never define the ``FUTURE`` build option. API + changes enabled by ``FUTURE`` are not stable and may be + API/ABI-breaking. That option is intended only for people who are + testing their code with a local build of qpdf to provide early + feedback or prepare for possible future changes to the API. + - qpdf's install targets do not install completion files by default since there is no standard location for them. As a packager, it's good if you install them wherever your distribution expects such diff --git a/manual/release-notes.rst b/manual/release-notes.rst index dcb626f2..806c5e6e 100644 --- a/manual/release-notes.rst +++ b/manual/release-notes.rst @@ -6,6 +6,10 @@ Release Notes For a detailed list of changes, please see the file :file:`ChangeLog` in the source distribution. +If you are a developer and want to test your code against future API +changes that are under consideration, you can build qpdf locally and +enable the ``FUTURE`` build option (see :ref:`build-options`). + Planned changes for future 12.x (subject to change): - ``QPDFObjectHandle`` will support move construction/assignment. This change will be invisible to most developers but may break