Ben Campbell
2009-Mar-31 14:50 UTC
[Xapian-discuss] binary db compatibility between versions
Is there a particular policy about if/when the on-disk format for xapian indexes changes between versions? (in specific, I'm looking at generating an index offline on a machine using xapian 1.0.5, then upload the files for use on a machine with xapian 1.0.7) Thanks, Ben.
Richard Boulton
2009-Mar-31 15:09 UTC
[Xapian-discuss] binary db compatibility between versions
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 03:50:01PM +0100, Ben Campbell wrote:> Is there a particular policy about if/when the on-disk format for xapian > indexes changes between versions? > > (in specific, I'm looking at generating an index offline on a machine > using xapian 1.0.5, then upload the files for use on a machine with > xapian 1.0.7)Hmm - I thought we'd documented this somewhere, but I can't find it right now. The general idea is that on-disk database formats for a stable backend (such as "flint" during the 1.0.x release series) shouldn't change between releases. However, we weren't able to maintain that during the 1.0 release series due to needing to fix various bugs. I believe the format became fully stable at revision 1.0.3, however. For what it's worth, we're now expecting flint to be fully stable - ie, no changes to its database format will be made until we stop supporting it (in the fairly distant future). In general, we managed to preserve backwards compatilibity (ie, new versions of Xapian could access databases created on older versions). For the particular revisions you mention, I believe there should be no compatibility issues; but I recommend reading the entries in NEWS for 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 carefully. -- Richard