Hi Andy,

What you’re describing here is types of changes that could be less impactful in 
many cases than other types of changes. And I agree that many of the examples 
you show are likely low impact for clients, but most of them are still 
officially NBC by RFC7950 rules IMO.  Please see inline.

Jason

From: Andy Bierman <a...@yumaworks.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 4:43 PM
To: Jason Sterne (Nokia) <jason.ste...@nokia.com>
Cc: Italo Busi <italo.b...@huawei.com>; Reshad Rahman <res...@yahoo.com>; Jan 
Lindblad <j...@tail-f.com>; netmod@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [netmod] Is changing the type with union a BC change?


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Hi,

On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 12:34 PM Jason Sterne (Nokia) 
<jason.sterne=40nokia....@dmarc.ietf.org<mailto:40nokia....@dmarc.ietf.org>> 
wrote:
Hi Italo,

IMO RFC7950 Section 11 makes the second case NBC (and I remember it being 
confirmed on this list in the past). It may not turn out to be impactful 
depending on the client design (and if only XML is used) but officially it is 
NBC. The type of the leaf is changing from whatever foo is, to type ‘union’.   
(even changes from uint8 to uint16 are NBC).



I think RFC 7950 addresses only XML encoding of YANG data.
CBOR encoding of a union would cause an NBC change only for protocols using 
CBOR.

I prefer to focus on the backward compatibility at run-time.
There are "soft" NBC changes that may break compile-time definitions but 
probably not run-time,
especially if old-client and new-client are not both changing the same 
configuration data structures.


The following change is not legal:[>>JTS:] Agree

V1:


     container oldway {}


V2:

     choice wrapper {
        container oldway {}
      }


The following changes are legal:[>>JTS:] Agree (although there will be 
subtleties in how oldway behaves once you add newway – if it magically changes 
values when someone writes to “newway” then it may not really be NBC)

V1:

     choice wrapper {
         container oldway {}
      }

V2:

     choice wrapper {
        container oldway {}
        container newway {}
     }

This allows old clients and new clients to coexist (better than just removing 
'oldway').
But adding the choice wrapper changes the schema node path that may be used in 
augments or deviations.
Creating the choice from the start would clutter YANG modules and add 
complexity.
IMO this compile-time NBC change is worth it if enough deployment of 'oldway' 
exists.

The same applies for a simple type changing to a union type.
It is not always transparent.  In C the order of the member types is 
irrelevant, but not in YANG.

Safe (except for CBOR):[>>JTS:] It may often be low impact, but this is not 
allowed according to RFC7950.

V1:

    leaf foo { type int8; }

V2:

   leaf foo {
      type union {
           type int8;
           type declimal64;
           type string;
       }
   }

Not safe since no member types after 'string' would ever match:[>>JTS:] And 
also NBC since the base type changes from string to union.

V1:

    leaf foo { type string; }

V2:

   leaf foo {
      type union {
           type string;
           type declimal64;
           type binary;
       }
   }

IMO it should be OK to to place the original type anywhere in the member types.
It may not be completely transparent within the implementation or the message 
encoding.

[>>JTS:] NBC since the base type changes from string to union.

V1:

    leaf foo { type string; }

new V2:

   leaf foo {
      type union {
           type declimal64;
           type binary;
           type string;
       }
   }

If old-client reads new values set by new-client then it may cause a problem,
but probably not if it only reads values set by old-client.


Some of those sections of 7950 are really focussed on XML encoding. But YANG is 
intended to work with other encodings (and some of those may not encode foo in 
and out of a union in the same way).


They only apply to XML.
Any extrapolation or new rules are post-7950.


Jason

Andy



From: Italo Busi <italo.b...@huawei.com<mailto:italo.b...@huawei.com>>
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 3:19 PM
To: Jason Sterne (Nokia) 
<jason.ste...@nokia.com<mailto:jason.ste...@nokia.com>>; Reshad Rahman 
<res...@yahoo.com<mailto:res...@yahoo.com>>; Jan Lindblad 
<j...@tail-f.com<mailto:j...@tail-f.com>>
Cc: netmod@ietf.org<mailto:netmod@ietf.org>
Subject: RE: [netmod] Is changing the type with union a BC change?

Hi Reshad, Jason, Jan,

Thanks for your replies

I have found these pieces of text in sections 9.12 and 11 which might be 
interpreted as stating that the changes to the union are BC:

   When generating an XML encoding, a value is encoded according to the
   rules of the member type to which the value belongs.  When
   interpreting an XML encoding, a value is validated consecutively
   against each member type, in the order they are specified in the
   "type" statement, until a match is found.  The type that matched will
   be the type of the value for the node that was validated, and the
   encoding is interpreted according to the rules for that type.

<…>

   The lexical representation of a union is a value that corresponds to
   the representation of any one of the member types.

<…>

   The canonical form of a union value is the same as the canonical form
   of the member type of the value.

<…>

   o  A "type" statement may be replaced with another "type" statement
      that does not change the syntax or semantics of the type.  For
      example, an inline type definition may be replaced with a typedef,
      but an int8 type cannot be replaced by an int16, since the syntax
      would change.

Given these definitions I am wondering whether having a different encoding 
between the union and its member types is a valid encoding according to RFC7950

If this is the case, my feeling is that both examples can be considered BC 
changes at least when the base types are the same (e.g., type foo, bar and baz 
are all strings)

Italo

From: Jason Sterne (Nokia) 
<jason.ste...@nokia.com<mailto:jason.ste...@nokia.com>>
Sent: giovedì 18 gennaio 2024 19:33
To: Reshad Rahman <res...@yahoo.com<mailto:res...@yahoo.com>>; Jan Lindblad 
<j...@tail-f.com<mailto:j...@tail-f.com>>; Italo Busi 
<italo.b...@huawei.com<mailto:italo.b...@huawei.com>>
Cc: netmod@ietf.org<mailto:netmod@ietf.org>
Subject: RE: [netmod] Is changing the type with union a BC change?

It was subtle and I can’t remember the exact reasoning (or section of RFC7950) 
but I think Martin pointed it out. Basically: adding another member to a union 
that already has members of that same type doesn’t change the possible 
encodings or storage types. But adding a new member with a new/different type 
(that wasn’t part of the union previously) suddenly introduces the possibility 
of a new type for that leaf. So it kinda falls under “don’t change the base 
type(s)”.

From: Reshad Rahman 
<reshad=40yahoo....@dmarc.ietf.org<mailto:reshad=40yahoo....@dmarc.ietf.org>>
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 10:59 AM
To: Jan Lindblad <j...@tail-f.com<mailto:j...@tail-f.com>>; Italo Busi 
<italo.b...@huawei.com<mailto:italo.b...@huawei.com>>; Jason Sterne (Nokia) 
<jason.ste...@nokia.com<mailto:jason.ste...@nokia.com>>
Cc: netmod@ietf.org<mailto:netmod@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [netmod] Is changing the type with union a BC change?

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Hi Jason,

I agree for the second case, and IIRC we did discuss that in the 
yang-module-versioning context.

But the first case, I don't understand why it's NBC if there's a new type. 
Encodings of the OLD types wouldn't change?

Regards,
Reshad.

On Thursday, January 18, 2024, 09:36:46 AM EST, Jason Sterne (Nokia) 
<jason.sterne=40nokia....@dmarc.ietf.org<mailto:jason.sterne=40nokia....@dmarc.ietf.org>>
 wrote:



Hi guys,



The second case is NBC. I remember wondering the same thing myself but the type 
in OLD is foo which the type in NEW is union. That is NBC (and in some 
encodings outside of XML, sending that leaf with type foo vs type union, member 
foo would be different).



OLD

type foo;



NEW

type union {

   type foo;

   type bar

}



The first case is NBC if the addition of the new member adds a new type to the 
list of members. So it depends on the underlying types of foo, bar and baz.  If 
they were all strings, for example, then it is BC.  But if foo and bar are 
“int” and then “baz” is a string, then adding that new member type into the 
union is NBC.



Jason



From: netmod <netmod-boun...@ietf.org<mailto:netmod-boun...@ietf.org>> On 
Behalf Of Jan Lindblad
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 5:13 AM
To: Italo Busi <italo.b...@huawei.com<mailto:italo.b...@huawei.com>>
Cc: netmod@ietf.org<mailto:netmod@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [netmod] Is changing the type with union a BC change?





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Italo,



Yes, this too would be BC according to the rules. There may be some situations 
where this kind of change might be disruptive in the real world, however, for 
example if you did this to a list key.



Best Regards,

/jan







Thanks Jan



Following the same logic, also the following change can be considered BC:



OLD

type foo;



NEW

type union {

   type foo;

   type bar

}



Is my understanding correct?



Thanks again



Italo



From: Jan Lindblad <j...@tail-f.com<mailto:j...@tail-f.com>>
Sent: giovedì 18 gennaio 2024 10:33
To: Italo Busi <italo.b...@huawei.com<mailto:italo.b...@huawei.com>>
Cc: netmod@ietf.org<mailto:netmod@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [netmod] Is changing the type with union a BC change?



Italo,



Yes, in my judgement this change should be considered BC according to YANG 
rules.



Note that the BC concept is a sort of *agreement* between client and server 
implementors that determines what kind of changes a) are allowed + b) have to 
be tolerated. Even when things are BC, that does not guarantee that things will 
always keep interoperating properly.



Best Regards,

/jan









On 17 Jan 2024, at 23:22, Italo Busi 
<Italo.Busi=40huawei....@dmarc.ietf.org<mailto:Italo.Busi=40huawei....@dmarc.ietf.org>>
 wrote:



I have some questions/doubts about whether changing a type with union is a BC 
or NBC change



For example, is the following change a BC or NBC change?



OLD

type union {

   type foo;

   type bar

}



NEW

type union {

   type foo;

   type bar;

   type baz

}



Section 11 of RFC7950 is silent on this case although this change is expanding 
the allowed value space and therefore it looks like a BC change



Thanks, Italo





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