122506 - Remove the "only one interface per idl file" rule

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Embedding: APIs, defect)

Description

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Since DougT has wontfix'd bug 121179, the guidelines for freezing interfaces at
the above url need to be updated. The following sentence needs to be removed:

> [Another important guideline to remember here is the requirement 
>  of having one and only one interface per idl file]

Comment 1

[Chak Nanga]

Cc:ing Jud for his comments on whether we should remove this requirement or not.

Comment 2

[Judson Valeski]

as a hard rule, yea, we should probably tweak it.

IIF the interfaces are "related", consolodating seems reasonable. Now we just
get to define "related" :-). IMO, nsIFoo and nsIFoo2, may, or may not be
related. Just because they share a lot of the same name, doesn't make them
related. If nsIFoo2 is a _replacement_ iface for nsIFoo, then they should be
separate. If nsIFoo2 is an _extension_ then I could see them living together.
Even then though, if it's a random extension that can easily be separated in
actual use, then I think it should live in it's own file. If you really can't
use one iface w/ out the other, then consolodation seems fine.

If we agree on the above, then we need to re-open 121179 IMO, because I can very
easily ignore nsIDir*2 and just use nsIDir*. In that case, the extension iface
can be de-coupled enough. I guess I could go either way on 122179.

Either way we should modify the rule to allow for some flexibility/best-judgement.

Comment 3

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Note that nsIDirectoryService.idl currently contains _three_ interfaces:
	
	interface nsIDirectoryServiceProvider
	interface nsIDirectoryServiceProvider2
	interface nsIDirectoryService

So it's not just the ...Provider vs Provider2 issue, but also the question
whether the Provider(s) should be separated from the Service or not.

Note that according to lxr the following .*Provider.idl files already exist:

/embedding/browser/webBrowser/nsITooltipTextProvider.idl 
/security/manager/boot/public/nsISSLStatusProvider.idl 
/netwerk/base/public/nsIStreamProvider.idl 
/netwerk/socket/base/nsISOCKSSocketProvider.idl 
/netwerk/socket/base/nsISSLSocketProvider.idl 
/netwerk/socket/base/nsISocketProvider.idl 
/netwerk/socket/base/nsISOCKS4SocketProvider.idl 
/accessible/public/nsIAccessibleProvider.idl 

Comment 4

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

removing 99160 blocker.

Comment 5

[Chak Nanga]

->1.0.1 per ADT