Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:00:07 -0500
From: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
To: Dagfinn Ilmari =?utf-8?Q?Manns=C3=A5ker?= <ilmari@ilmari.org>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
	Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>,
	Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>,
	Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>,
	=?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>,
	Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: remove bits* types
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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