Re: status of libgit.a

[Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 11:27:35AM +0100, Paul Menzel wrote:
> 
> could you please give an update on the status of libgit.a. For example
> cgit still could not be packaged yet for Debian [1] because of this bug
> [2].
> 
> cgit is used by a lot of projects out there, so I am wondering if the
> current libgit.a can be released in its current state.
> 
> By the way, is there a web site/page for libgit.a?

libgit.a has never been meant to use outside of Git. It was created just
to assist with the building process, and there is no clear defined API.
So, using libgit.a outside of Git is no different than copying source
files and using them in another project.

AFAIK, there is no plan to create a stable API for the existing libgit.a
Another project (libgit2) started some time ago to create a Git library
with a stable API, but it does not share much code with Git, and so far
it provides only basic functionality and has very few contributors, who
are also busy with other projects. So, in no way it can be considered as
a replacement of existing libgit.a.

On the other hand, libgit.a includes plumbing functions, which may be
considered as stable API. So, if cgit uses only those functions just to
avoid fork(), it makes sense; but it should be done carefully, because
libgit.a can call exit() on error. It may be not a problem for cgit, but
it is just another reason why libgit.a cannot be considered as a general
purpose library that provides Git functionality...


Dmitry