[Zlib-devel] ABI change in zlib 1.2.4

[Xin LI]

Hi, Mark,

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Mark Adler <madler at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Mar 17, 2010, at 11:35 AM, Xin LI wrote:
>> I am thinking about making a bug-for-bug change for FreeBSD as
>> attached.  Will this look bad for anyone?  Can we make it in next zlib
>> release?
>
> Xin,
>
> libxml already has a fix for this, so the issue is mainly synchronization for when new versions of libxml and new versions of zlib are deployed.  The repaired version of libxml will work with all versions of zlib, but the old version of libxml will not work with the new version of zlib.
>
> I will not be applying your patch, since I do not want to have to support applications that dig into and depend on the details of zlib's internal structures.
>
> Lastly, it is not a bug in zlib to continue to be compatible only with its external interface.  It is a bug in libxml to violate those interfaces -- a reported, accepted, and repaired bug at that.

Yes I fully agree with that and thanks for the reference.

A google search turns out a changeset
a7e79f28689c574e0bbef17f4cb3da00249181ff but I didn't found it in
GNOME's tree.  I have submitted a FreeBSD PR and will get this fixed
in our libxml2 port.  However, as a commitment to our users in terms
of ABI stability, we may have to make the workaround in our -STABLE
branch, but I think it's just fine to import unchanged zlib headers in
our -HEAD.

Cheers,
-- 
Xin LI <delphij at delphij.net> http://www.delphij.net