[THRIFT-3393] Introduce i8 to provide consistent set of Thrift IDL integer types

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 0.10.0
• Component/s: Compiler (General)
• Labels: i8
• Patch Info: Patch Available
• Assignee: Jens Geyer
• Reporter: Jens Geyer
• Created: 18/Oct/15 16:31
• Updated: 26/Sep/22 20:35
• Resolved: 18/Mar/16 17:54

Description

In following up a recent email discussion and the consistent stream of problems with the signedness of the Thrift IDL byte datatype, we should

• add an i8 data type to provide a consistent set
• keep the byte type for the sake of compatibility
• internally map all references to byte to i8

I'm hesitant though about printing a warning for byte at this stage. A lot of third-party-tools rely on Thrift IDL and I don't want to introduce any breaking changes. IMHO we should promote i8 instead of byte wherever possible, but not hammer that nail too much.

This patch is solely about the changes needed in the IDL and the compiler infrastructure, changing only what's necessary in the various target languages to let make check succeed. Any additional changes to be made in the language libs should be added as a sub-task as necessary. This procedure allows us to make the changes in a more granular way while still maintaining a shippable product.

Issue Links

• relates to: THRIFT-5153 Deprecate byte