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73 lines
4.6 KiB
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73 lines
4.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
Versioning
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==========
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As the Corda platform evolves and new features are added it becomes important to have a versioning system which allows
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its users to easily compare versions and know what feature are available to them. Each Corda release uses the standard
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semantic versioning scheme of ``major.minor.patch``. This is useful when making releases in the public domain but is not
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friendly for a developer working on the platform. It first has to be parsed and then they have three separate segments on
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which to determine API differences. The release version is still useful and every MQ message the node sends attaches it
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to the ``release-version`` header property for debugging purposes.
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Platform Version
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----------------
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It is much easier to use a single incrementing integer value to represent the API version of the Corda platform, which
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is called the Platform Version. It is similar to Android's `API Level <https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html>`_.
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It starts at 1 and will increment by exactly 1 for each release which changes any of the publicly exposed APIs in the
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entire platform. This includes public APIs on the node itself, the RPC system, messaging, serialisation, etc. API backwards
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compatibility will always be maintained, with the use of deprecation to migrate away from old APIs. In rare situations
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APIs may have to be removed, for example due to security issues. There is no relationship between the Platform Version
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and the release version - a change in the major, minor or patch values may or may not increase the Platform Version.
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The Platform Version is part of the node's ``NodeInfo`` object, which is available from the ``ServiceHub``. This enables
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a CorDapp to find out which version it's running on and determine whether a desired feature is available. When a node
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registers with the Network Map Service it will use the node's Platform Version to enforce a minimum version requirement
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for the network.
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.. note:: A future release may introduce the concept of a target platform version, which would be similar to Android's
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``targetSdkVersion``, and would provide a means of maintaining behavioural compatibility for the cases where the
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platform's behaviour has changed.
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Flow versioning
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---------------
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In addition to the evolution of the platform, flows that run on top of the platform can also evolve. It may be that the
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flow protocol between an initiating flow and it's intiated flow changes from one CorDapp release to the next in such as
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way to be backwards incompatible with existing flows. For example, if a sequence of sends and receives needs to change
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or if the semantics of a particular receive changes.
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The ``InitiatingFlow`` annotation (see :doc:`flow-state-machine` for more information on the flow annotations) has a ``version``
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property, which if not specified defaults to 1. This flow version is included in the flow session handshake and exposed
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to both parties in the communication via ``FlowLogic.getFlowContext``. This takes in a ``Party`` and will return a
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``FlowContext`` object which describes the flow running on the other side. In particular it has the ``flowVersion`` property
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which can be used to programmatically evolve flows across versions.
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.. container:: codeset
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.. sourcecode:: kotlin
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@Suspendable
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override fun call() {
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val flowVersionOfOtherParty = getFlowContext(otherParty).flowVersion
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val receivedString = if (flowVersionOfOtherParty == 1) {
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receive<Int>(otherParty).unwrap { it.toString() }
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} else {
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receive<String>(otherParty).unwrap { it }
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}
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}
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The above shows an example evolution of a flow which in the first version was expecting to receive an Int, but then
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in subsequent versions was relaxed to receive a String. This flow is still able to communicate with parties which are
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running the older flow (or rather older CorDapps containing the older flow).
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.. warning:: It's important that ``InitiatingFlow.version`` be incremented each time the flow protocol changes in an
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incompatible way.
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``FlowContext`` also has ``appName`` which is the name of the CorDapp hosting the flow. This can be used to determine
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implementation details of the CorDapp. See :doc:`cordapp-build-systems` for more information on the CorDapp filename.
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.. note:: Currently changing any of the properties of a ``CordaSerializable`` type is also backwards incompatible and
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requires incrementing of ``InitiatingFlow.version``. This will be relaxed somewhat once the AMQP wire serialisation
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format is implemented as it will automatically handle a lot of the data type migration cases.
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