From: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
To: Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker <ilmari@ilmari.org>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>
Cc: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
Cc: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Cc: Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
Cc: Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: remove bits* types
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:00:07 -0500
Message-ID: <acq6J5W_pe_DRP25@nathan> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <874ilx43tb.fsf@wibble.ilmari.org>
References: <absbX33E4eaA0Ity@nathan>
<a3b5edc3-c0f5-42ae-b463-17018ee03dcb@eisentraut.org>
<acV5NYm4XBzIE50N@nathan>
<CAAKRu_ZucXL3mLc0f-t_7giiChN9Zad2EAr9SoAqFFc95vFaOg@mail.gmail.com>
<acqsERCb1t8OCZpG@nathan>
<2493698.1774890452@sss.pgh.pa.us>
<acqu7Z40kvJ4t8O8@nathan>
<874ilx43tb.fsf@wibble.ilmari.org>
On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 06:36:48PM +0100, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker wrote:
> To avoid breaking extensions, we could leave the typedefs in place with
> an #ifndef guard on some symbol that's only defined when building
> postgres itself, but not when building extensions (or vice versa with an
> #ifdef instead).
>
> This is used a lot in Perl for things we don't want to use in core any
> more, but we don't want to break CPAN modules still using.
It's hard to get an exact count because the names are so common, but I'm
seeing <10 packages on codesearch.debian.net that might be affected, and
it's quite easy to fix (s/bits/uint/g). My experience is that we routinely
"break" extensions like this in new major versions, too. So, I'm not
convinced we need to do any kind of backward-compatibility work. In any
case, we have a lot of time between now and GA, so if a bunch of angry
extension authors come to my door with pitchforks, we can reconsider.
--
nathan
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To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Cc: nathandbossart@gmail.com, ilmari@ilmari.org, tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, melanieplageman@gmail.com, peter@eisentraut.org, andres@anarazel.de, alvherre@kurilemu.de, pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: remove bits* types
In-Reply-To: <acq6J5W_pe_DRP25@nathan>
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