Re: [agtk-devel] AG API -- list return type

[Mark L. <my...@un...>]

 >On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 07:23, Kazuaki Maeda wrote:
 >> We are interested in hearing your opinions about the following possible
 >> changes in the API.
 >>
 >> In the current AG API, functions that return sets of ID's, names, etc. have
 >> the return type of "string" instead of "list".  For example,
 >> GetAnnotationSetByOffset returns a string that may look like
 >> "AGSet1:AG1:Annotation1 AGSet1:AG1:Annotation2 ...".  This requires
 >> additional processing on the application side.  We are thinking about
 >> changing the API in a future version of AGLIB such that these functions
 >> return lists instead of strings.
 >
 >Absolutely, please make this change. These should never have been strings in 
 >the first place.  
 >
 >The compile time switch might be a good way to manage the change but in the 
 >end everyone will be sure to move over given the obvious need for this.
 >
 >Steve

Another way to manage the change would be to re-name the functions
(e.g. "GetAnnotationSetByOffset" -> "GetAnnotationListByOffset")
and deprecate the old ones.


   -Mark