In PR 12074 https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/12074 I propose adding a
function `version.get_numpy_version_as_hex()` which returns a hex value
to represent the current NumPy version MAJOR.MINOR.MICRO where
v = hex(MAJOR << 24 | MINOR << 16 | MICRO)
so the current 1.15.0 would become '0x10f0000'. I also made this
avaiable via C through `get_hex_version`. The hex version is based on
the |PY_VERSION_HEX| macro from CPython.
Currently we have a ABI version and an API version for the numpy C-API.
We only increment those for updated or breaking changes in the NumPy
C-API, but not for
- changes in behavior, especially in python code
- changes in sizes of outward-facing structures like PyArray_Desc
Occasionally it is desirable to determine backward compatibility from
the runtime version, rather than from the ABI or API versions, and
having it as a single value makes the comparison in C easy. For instance
this may be convenient when there is suspicion that older header files
may have been used to create or manipulate an object directly in C (or
via a cython optimization), and we want to verify the version used to
create the object, or when we may want to verify de-serialized objects.
The `numpy.lib._version.NumpyVersion` class enables version comparison
in python, but I would prefer a single value that can be stored in a C
struct as an integer type.
Since this is an enhancement proposal, I am bringing the idea to the
mailing list for reactions.
Matti
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