134 lines
4.3 KiB
ReStructuredText
134 lines
4.3 KiB
ReStructuredText
PEP: 629
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Title: Versioning PyPI's Simple API
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Author: Donald Stufft <donald@stufft.io>
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Discussions-To: https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-629-versioning-pypis-simple-api/4720
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Status: Draft
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Type: Standards Track
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Content-Type: text/x-rst
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Created: 16-Jul-2020
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Post-History: 16-Jul-2020
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Abstract
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========
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This PEP proposes adding a method for versioning the simple API so
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that clients can determine which features of the simple API that a
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specific repository supports.
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Rationale
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=========
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When evolving the simple API, clients wish to be able to determine
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which features the repository supports. Currently there is no
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mechanism to do this, except by attempting to detect new features
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by looking at the data in the reponses and see if it appears like
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a particular feature is in use.
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This works reasonably well for a modern version of a client to determine
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if the repository supports all of the features it wants to implement,
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however it does not do anything to tell an older version the client that
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the repository supports features that it might not understand and to
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allow messaging to indicate that it might not be correctly understanding
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the output of the repository.
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An example of a scenario where this happened was the phasing in of
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python-requires metadata, while existing clients could still successfully
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use the repository, they were lacking the ability to understand this new
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piece of data which would have informed their behavior to select a better
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file for end users.
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Overview
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========
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This PEP proposes the inclusion of a meta tag on the responses of every
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sucessful request to a simple API page, which contains a name attribute
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of "pypi:repository-version", and a content that is a PEP 440 compatible
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version number, which is further constrained to ONLY be Major.Minor, and
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none of the additional features supported by PEP 440.
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This would end up looking like::
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<meta name="pypi:repository-version" content="1.0">
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Interpretation of this version is that incrementing the major version
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is considereed a backwards incompatible change such that existing
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clients would no longer be expected to be able to meaningfully use the
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new API, and incrementing the minor version is a backwards compatible
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change that existing clients would no longer be able to meaningfully
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use the API.
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It is expectation of this PEP that the major version will never be
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incremented, and any future major API evolutions would utilize a
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different mechanism for API evolution. However the major version
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is included to disambiguate with future versions (e.g. a hypothetical
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simple api v2 that lived at /v2/, but which would be confusing if the
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repository-version was set to a version >= 2).
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This PEP sets the current API version to "1.0", and expects that
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future PEPs that further evolve the simple API will increment the
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minor version number.
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Clients
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-------
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Clients interacting with the simple API **SHOULD** introspect each
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response for the repository version, and if that data does not exist
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**MUST** assumee that it is version 1.0.
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When encountering a major version greater than expected, clients
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**MUST** hard fail with an appropiate error message for the user.
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When encountering a minor version greater than expected, clients
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**SHOULD** warn users with an appropiate message.
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Clients **MAY** still continue to use feature detection in order to
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determine what features a repository uses.
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Rejected Ideas
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==============
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Using a Header
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--------------
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Instead of baking this information into the actual HTML, an
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alternative would be to use a HTTP header. This idea was
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considered and ultimately was rejected because it would make
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mirrors have to start modifying headers instead of being able
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to operate as a "dumb" HTTP server of files.
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Using an URL
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------------
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Another traditional mechanism for versioning APIs is to bake it
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into the URL, something like ``/1.0/simplee/`` or so. This works
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well for major version changes where olders clients are not
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expected to be capable of continuing to use it, but it is not
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well suited to minor version bumps, particularly when the version
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numbers can be viewed as largely advisory for end users.
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Copyright
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=========
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This document is placed in the public domain or under the
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CC0-1.0-Universal license, whichever is more permissive.
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..
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Local Variables:
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coding: utf-8
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End:
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