On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 2:44 AM, Dirk Thomas <mail@dirk-thomas.net> wrote:
>> I have one question regarding the version numbers:
>> How can I check in my code (at compile time) which pluginlib version is
>> available and conditionally use the new functionality?
>
> It looks like that this is not yet possible or have I missed something
> obvious?
>
> The CMake macro "rosbuild_make_distribution" does nothing and the pluginlib
> does not specific any version number in C++ code.
> Using the ROS version is no alternative since
> a) a program does not (necessarily) depend on roscpp and
> b) both packages (roscpp and pluginlib) does not need to be updated at the
> same time - so the ROS version is not related to the pluginlib version.
>
> Since many parts of ROS are currently refactored into separately usable
> libraries I would propose that each of them should specify the version
> number in a form that makes it available for compile time conditional
> checks.
>

Yes.  Going further, I'd suggest that the checks not stop at compile
time:   sonames on shared libraries and perhaps an ABI compatibility
checking mechanism a-la
http://people.willowgarage.com/straszheim/bydate/110816.abi_compatibility.html
would be good to integrate.

-t