launchpadlib

changing service roots to symbols will break clients

Bug #719144 reported by Martin Pool on 2011-02-15

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	launchpadlib	Invalid	Critical	Unassigned

Bug Description

In the discussion of bug 714043, leonardr says

> In 1.9.5, which is about to go into Ubuntu, the symbol for LPNET_SERVICE_ROOT is the string 'production'.

If that's true, I think it would be an unfortunate client API break, and as far as I can see an unnecessary one. I'm happy about adding a token-type name for 'production' rather than a URL, and also about adding a variable that points to the string. But please add a new one rather than changing the meaning of an existing interface.

However in the tip of lp:launchpadlib, which claims to be 1.9.6, this change hasn't actually been made as far as I can see.

I'm marking this critical because it would be better not to release natty with this broken.

Revision history for this message

Martin Pool (mbp) wrote on 2011-02-15:

OK, so I think Leonard was just saying in bug 714043 that he could hypothetically change this, not that he actually has or will. If that's true, this is invalid.

Changed in launchpadlib:
status:	Triaged → Invalid

Revision history for this message

Leonard Richardson (leonardr) wrote on 2011-02-15:

Not so fast. In 1.9.6, with the branch https://code.launchpad.net/~leonardr/launchpadlib/fake-edge, I changed launchpadlib.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT from "https://api.edge.launchpad.net/" to "edge". I did this because it was the easiest way to detect people using EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT and issue a deprecation warning.

If this is catastrophic, I'll change it back, but I'll have to replace it with a complex object that gives the appearance of a string but gives a deprecation warning when it's used. Otherwise I'll never be able to get rid of EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT because no one will ever know it's deprecated. (It's already been deprecated for more than a year.)

Revision history for this message

Leonard Richardson (leonardr) wrote on 2011-02-15:

Just to be clear, I am talking throughout about launchpadlib.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT, which was deprecated over a year ago in favor of launchpad.uris.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT. But it was deprecated in a code comment, so no one noticed.

Revision history for this message

Leonard Richardson (leonardr) wrote on 2011-02-15:

Argh. I can't talk correctly about this.

launchpadlib.launchpad.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT was deprecated in favor of the literal string "edge", over a year ago.

However, if you need a URL, you can get it from launchpadlib.uris.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT.

However, you shouldn't be using launchpadlib.launchpad.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT, *or* launchpadlib.uris.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT, *or* the literal string "edge". Because the edge server *itself* is deprecated and one day it will stop working (as it stopped working yesterday, but permanently).

In the meantime, I am doing what I can to make launchpadlib.launchpad.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT, launchpadlib.uris.EDGE_SERVICE_ROOT, and the literal string "edge" actually refer to the production server.