[Libvir] ABI compatibility question: static strings returned from some functions

[Richard W.M. Jones]

We have some functions such as virConnectGetType which are defined to 
return statically allocated strings:

/**
  * virConnectGetType:
  * @conn: pointer to the hypervisor connection
  *
  * Get the name of the Hypervisor software used.
  *
  * Returns NULL in case of error, a static zero terminated string 
otherwise.
  */
const char *
virConnectGetType(virConnectPtr conn)
[...]

This is all well and good in the typical local case, but when working 
over a remote connection the string we return is allocated and requires 
freeing at some point.  Unfortunately I don't see a good thing to do in 
this case except to change the semantics of virConnectGetType, which 
arguably breaks ABI compatibility.

Suggestions from anyone?

Rich.

garbage.collection++

-- 
Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/
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