OpenEuphoria

Re: (no subject)

• Posted by Jason Gade <jaygade at yahoo.com> Dec 14, 2004
• 932 views

Alan Oxley wrote:
> My reply:
> You said it yourself - if the official is the only release, then the CRC
> won't change? But consider if the convention of "2.5.01" is used,
> or even (possibly less usable) return a string "Euphoria vx.x 12th December
> 2004".
> 
> Whats the problem with generating and storing a CRC for every release? There
> are not THAT many! Why would you want to test for future versions, if
> they don't exist..? The reason for testing is to ensure your code is
> compatible with a feature that does not (yet) exist? Sorry, I don't get this.
> Also, there is no reasons why two or more CRC's cannot return the same
> EU version like "2.5" if what the CRC's identify are known bugfixes from Rob.
> 
> I'd still like Rob to give us a proper function though, as first prize.
> My suggestion is mostly aimed at testing for earlier releases without 
> having to change them.
> 
> Regards
> Alan
> 

The problem is say you use a feature which is included in versions 2.8 or later.
 You want to check to make sure you have *at least* version 2.8.  You don't care
if the user has 2.9, 3.1 or whatever.  Since you can't tell if the CRC is going
to be greater or less than the CRC for 2.8, you can only check for 2.8 *exactly*.

Euphoria is small enough, I think, to include the required interpreter and files
to users.  Also, binding or translating would work.  For open source, you would
just distribute a source tree like any other (executable) project would.

The real problem, of course, comes in distributing libraries that you don't want
to work only for the lowest common denominator.  Libraries are the code that need
to check versions somewhat reliably so they can give a meaningful message to the
user of the library.  (Of course, if the library user would read the docs...)

=====================================
Too many freaks, not enough circuses.

j.