CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Although I guess I'm not the only one who missed out on info about API changes it was a surprise to find the relationship functions split into two files. Could the new API team define a way to announce changes or if there is one could someone clue me in!  

I think FatherShawn just volunteered to join the A team guys!

(that's how we joined).

I wasn't aware of changes to the relationship function but just a couple of points based on the article

You also have to call civicrm_contact_get method instead of search which has been deprecated.

Actually you don't 'have to' but we certainly recommend you do. We are currently discussing the best way to move onto APIv3 and it's highly likely APIv2 will be untouched but support will be phased out.

This issue highlights the fact that the API is frequently a portal to the underlying database / code and the fix is to improve our testing to the point where nothing sneaks by us. Or at least improve it as much as we have resources to do

I think FatherShawn just volunteered to join the A team guys!

(that's how we joined).

Great - opened my mouth! 

What if we keep it simple and create a page at the top of CiviCRM Public APIs to function as a public "change log" to display changes in the API from the previous stable version of CiviCRM?  Interested persons can "watch" the page and thereby be informed of changes.

the latter could be done with a mailing groups' sign-up using block civicrm on the site 

Hi,

For those that didn't participate in the various emails exchange that this post started:

1) Please register yourself/your site if you are using the api. You have an option "keep me informed about the dirty technical details" (I'm paraphrasing, not sure what I put anymore . We'll try to update you *before* introducing an incompatible change in the API.

http://civicrm.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=15

2) Check if the api tests are covering the way you use the API and your parameters and if not, add this test (welcome to the new volunteer in the A team !)
if it isn't there, it won't be identified as a regression if something changes

There is a QA/test forum and IRC if you need help on how to create test and run them

3) Michal did admit being guilty of having seen that the tests failed (regression identified), but did change the parameters in the tests, instead of  "do something" so the API works both with the new param (eg. array) and the old one (eg string) for the home_URL. Or at least inform about the planned change

Next time I'm in Poland, I'm going to do terrible things to him on your behalf

He thought about being able to spot these regressions (in the case covered by unit tests) by doing some magic with svn and diff the changes between the previous version and this one.

@Michal, did it work ?

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