6 API Compatibility

The goal of this section is to describe some API changes that occurred from one version of MPFR to another, and how to write code that can be compiled and run with older MPFR versions. The minimum MPFR version that is considered here is 2.2.0 (released on 20 September 2005).

API changes can only occur between major or minor versions. Thus the patchlevel (the third number in the MPFR version) will be ignored in the following. If a program does not use MPFR internals, changes in the behavior between two versions differing only by the patchlevel should only result from what was regarded as a bug or unspecified behavior.

As a general rule, a program written for some MPFR version should work with later versions, possibly except at a new major version, where some features (described as obsolete for some time) can be removed. In such a case, a failure should occur during compilation or linking. If a result becomes incorrect because of such a change, please look at the various changes below (they are minimal, and most software should be unaffected), at the FAQ and at the MPFR web page for your version (a bug could have been introduced and be already fixed); and if the problem is not mentioned, please send us a bug report (see Reporting Bugs).

However, a program written for the current MPFR version (as documented by this manual) may not necessarily work with previous versions of MPFR. This section should help developers to write portable code.

Note: Information given here may be incomplete. API changes are also described in the NEWS file (for each version, instead of being classified like here), together with other changes.