When to change {udkapi,offapi}/type_reference/{udkapi,offapi}.idl

[Stephan Bergmann]

Hi all,

The *.idl (formerly *.rdb) files in {udkapi,offapi}/type_reference/ are 
meant to represent the status of our (published) UNO API as previously 
released, to allow detecting inadvertent incompatible changes.

Therefore, these files should generally be left unchanged.  The only 
time to change them is when a deliberate incompatible change (with a 
commit message containing "[API CHANGE]") would otherwise break the 
compatibility checks when building udkapi or offapi.  (And in the past, 
when those type_references were binary *.rdb files, that was a somewhat 
tricky task.  Now that they are textual *.idl files it has become (too?) 
trivial.)

(So, if there are any git-hook aficionados out there, maybe there's a 
way to prevent commits that change 
{udkapi,offapi}/type_reference/{udkapi,offapi}.idl but do not contain 
"[API CHANGE]" in the commit message.)

(I just pushed 
<http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=bf1284d34e3bf53179a1513265accc0c3f54337c> 
"Keep type_reference/offapi.idl at backwards-compatibility reference 
status" to revert one such inadvertent change.)

Thanks,
Stephan