Re: [equinox-dev] Deprecation of version-match attribute

[Dejan Glozic <dejan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Isn't it a bit late for this change considering when we wanted to solidify
our APis.

Regards,

Dejan Glozic, Ph.D.
Manager, Eclipse Development 1A
D2/R0Q/8200/MKM
IBM Canada Ltd.
Tel. 905 413-2745  T/L 969-2745
Fax. 905 413-4854



                                                                           
             Thomas Watson                                                 
             <tjwatson@xxxxxx.                                             
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                                       [equinox-dev] Deprecation of        
             04/30/2004 06:12          version-match attribute             
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This note only concerns developers of plugins that have hand crafted bundle
manifest files (META-INF/MANIFEST.MF) and that use the Require-Bundle and
Fragment-Host manifest headers.  If you do not do any of these things you
can ignore this note.

The version-match attribute for the Require-Bundle and Fragment-Host
manifest headers has been deprecated.  The version-match attribute allowed
developers to specify match rules when declaring required bundles and
fragment hosts.  There was a predefined set of match rules that the
Framework understood (qualifier, micro, minor, major,
greaterthan-or-equal).  This allowed developers to specify what versions
they were willing to accept for use within their bundle/plugin

The OSGi community felt that the predefined set of match rules was limiting
because it did not allow you to specify an arbitrary range of versions to
match against.  For example, the following Require-Bundle header specifies
that a bundle requires org.eclipse.foo

Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0; version-match=major

The version-match=major specifies that any plugin org.eclipse.foo with a
major version number equal to 3 is acceptable (e.g 3.0.1, 3.1.0, ... but
not 4.0).  While this model satisfies most developers it does not allow for
more complex range checks.  For example match on versions 3.0.2 to 4.5.1.
The OSGi community has decided to remove the version-match attribute and
enhance the syntax to the bundle-version attribute.  The new syntax for
bundle-version will allow a developer to specify a range of versions to
match against using the mathematical floor and ceiling notation.

Here are some examples of the new syntax the first line uses the old
version-match attribute and the following line uses the new version range
syntax:

Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0.test;
version-match=qualifier
Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version="[3.0.0.test,3.0.0.test]"

Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0; version-match=micro
Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version="[3.0.0,3.0.1)"

Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0; version-match=minor
Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version="[3.0.0,3.1.0)"

Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0; version-match=major
Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version="[3.0.0,4.0.0)"

Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0;
version-match=greaterthan-or-equal
Require-Bundle: org.eclipse.foo; bundle-version=3.0.0


The general syntax for bundle-version is:
        [ floor , ceiling )

Where floor is the minimum version and ceiling is the maximum version to
match against.  The first character may be '[' or '('.  The character '['
indicates that the floor is included in the range and '(' indicates the
floor is NOT included in the range.  The last character may be ']' or ')'.
The character ']' indicates that the ceiling is included in the range and
')' indicates that the ceiling is NOT included in the range.  If you want
to specify greaterthan-or-equal then you only specify the version with no
extra characters.  When specifying a version range you MUST use a quoted
string like the examples above.

This change should only effect a limited group of developers that are using
hand crafted bundle manifest files and use the bundle-version or
version-match attributes.  The only eclipse component that have such
manifests is SWT.  I will open a bug report against SWT and supply a patch
for them to update their manifest files.

Thomas Watson