Re: [Boost-users] [boost][uuid][release] Changelog for 1.47.0 does not properly warn about critical bug

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [boost][uuid][release] Changelog for 1.47.0 does not properly warn about critical bug
From: Paul Harris (harris.pc_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-12-01 20:13:13

Sorry, didn't see this email come through until now !

On 14 August 2011 02:47, Andy Tompkins <atompkins_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:34 -0700, "Eric Niebler" <eric_at_[hidden]>
> wrote:
> > Cross-posting to the developers list, fixing the title. This sounds
> > like a serious bug, possibly worthy of a point release. Can anybody
> > confirm and chime in?
>
> I don't have access to code for the next few weeks to confirm, but just
> to
> be clear, the bug is fixed in 1.47, just not documented well.  Correct?
>
>
Yes.

I scan the ChangeLog of new releases to see if something important has been
fixed, to determine if I need to upgrade immediately, or later (when I have
time - I often skip one or two releases).

Ideally, it would be good if there was a page for every OLD release, that
lists serious bugs that existed in those older versions.

That way, if you are working on a piece of software that uses eg 1.41.0,
you can check the page to look for serious bugs that might need to be
patched or worked around.

I think this bug would fall into that category.

> On 8/5/2011 4:20 AM, Paul Harris wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > I discovered this bug by accident
> > > https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/changeset/68866 which was only
> > > linked via the ticket mentioned below,
> > >
> > > The code below demonstrates that ANY wide-character string of the
> > > same length resolves to the same UUID !
> > >
> > > Thats pretty darn serious, I expected to see a much more serious
> > > mention in the Changelog in boost 1.47.0... for UUID, there was only
> > > a mention of a few tickets including this one:
> > > https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/5145 which only mentioned a
> > > WARNING in the description ! "Fixed warning: use of logical && with
> > > constant operand; switch to bitwise & or remove constant
> [-Wconstant-logical-
> > > operand]"
> > >
> > > Surely it should say something like "UUIDs for wide character
> > > strings are totally wrong"
>
> I didn't realize that this bug manifested in this way.  I agree that
> this wording is much better.
>
> > > Note also that the Changelog link for UUID goes to Utility,
> > > not UUID.
>
> Not sure what happened here.
>
>
I looked at the online changelog for 1.47.0, I don't see any adjusted
messages in there.

Developers may still scan older Changelogs for important bug fixes, can we
please get the message added?

Thanks
Paul