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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/contributing.texi')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/contributing.texi | 11 |
1 files changed, 11 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/contributing.texi b/doc/contributing.texi index 86fc65eb2d..864190b119 100644 --- a/doc/contributing.texi +++ b/doc/contributing.texi @@ -1308,6 +1308,17 @@ Guile Reference Manual}); pattern matching for records is better done using @code{match-record} from @code{(guix records)}, which, unlike @code{match}, verifies field names at macro-expansion time. +When defining a new record type, keep the @dfn{record type descriptor} +(RTD) private (@pxref{Records,,, guile, GNU Guile Reference Manual}, for +more on records and RTDs). As an example, the @code{(guix packages)} +module defines @code{<package>} as the RTD for package records but it +does not export it; instead, it exports a type predicate, a constructor, +and field accessors. Exporting RTDs would make it harder to change the +application binary interface (because code in other modules might be +matching fields by position) and would make it trivial for users to +forge records of that type, bypassing any checks we may have in the +official constructor (such as ``field sanitizers''). + @node Formatting Code @subsection Formatting Code |