Re: Patch for gnatsweb.pl

[Yngve Svendsen]

At 17:39 25.09.2002 +0200, Lars Henriksen wrote:
> I've realised that there is even more to it than I thought at first.
>
> Robert Lupton's patch as well as mine breaks backward compatibility:
> bookmarked and stored queries may stop working or behave differently.
>
> According to comments in the gnatsweb code, that is also what has kept
> the parameter/field/lower/upper case confusion from being dealt with and
> field2param() and param2field() from disappearing. I have spent some
> time on figuring out the use of (dbconfig) field names versus form
> parameter (lower case) versions. It is not too difficult to eliminate
> the parameter/field conversion entirely and use dbconfig names (I have
> a patch) but again, not without breaking some existing bookmarked and
> stored queries.
>
> Do we want to (must we) keep backward combatibility? With gnatsweb 3.*?
> With earlier gnatsweb 4 versions? As far as I can see from some bookmarks
> produced by 3.113, compatibility with that version is already broken
> (I have seen some "arrivedbefore=" or "modifiedafter=" query parameters
> that are not recognised by gnatsweb 4).

While working with the recent "Sort By" patches, I had occasion to look 
more closely at this. Compatibility with stored Gnatsweb 2 queries is a 
non-issue I think. There are a few sites I know of that use Gnatsweb 3.99.x 
in production (Dirk, this probably concerns you), but if we are ever to rid 
Gnatsweb of this totally unnecessary level of complexity, this is the time.

I think I'll use my Supreme Maintainer Authority to decree that field2param 
and param2field must die. A first step has been to use the dbconfig field 
names in the Query Page fields instead of built-in/lowercase names.

Relevant patches are very welcome, since I have somewhat limited time to 
code right now (With Milan out of the picture I'd also like to keep half an 
eye on GNATS itself and apply those simple uncontroversial patches that are 
submitted from time to time)

- Yngve