Breaking API changes in patch releases

News & General Discussion
1

(I’m not sure if this is the most relevant sub-forum to post this in, but I can’t think of any others)

The latest patch release (5.2.1p1) added two methods to the ICanvasElement interface. I have a number of complaints about this, as an Asset Store developer.

  • There are no compiler defines for patch releases. There is no way to use compiler defines to implement the new interface only on Unity versions that support it until the next non-patch release.
  • This change wasn’t mentioned in the release notes, so I missed it until I had users reporting the error.

I know that patch releases are supposed to be only for if you really need a fix for one of the fixed bugs, but introducing breaking API changes in them is very frustrating. This has happened once before when you guys deprecated and removed the Resources.LoadAssetAtPath<>() method in a single patch release.

So, I was just wondering if a bit more care could be taken to not breaking the script API between patch releases in future, or at least report it in the patch notes.

Thanks

2

Hey. Thanks for the message and feedback.
Its unfortunate that the API change slipped through, we should not be changing this stuff in a patch unless its for a fix.
I will get the patch notes updated.

2 Likes
3

Thanks @karl_jones . I wasn’t sure if it was your policy to introduce API changes in the patches or not. I’m glad to hear that it’s not a normal occurrence.

4

That’s definitely not normal occurrence. On the contrary: I think it was a mistake on our side.