Re: How does Postgres support backwards compatibility

On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 11:51 AM Josh Innis <joshinnis(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

>
> I work on an extension for Postgres. We originally developed the extension
> for Postgres 11. Now we are looking into supporting newer versions of
> Postgres. We would like our extension to be compatible with multiple
> versions of Postgres. Is there a document that explains how the Postgres
> community handles releases and supports older versions? Any information on
> how Postgres handles this will give us guidance on how to best approach
> this subject.
>
>
This really isn't the right place to ask this kind of question. -general
would be a good place, you'll still reach the people who can respond
intelligently. I'll toss out my $0.02 here though I'm not that deep in the
weeds on the topic.

Major releases don't really make any promises but we do try not to break
things that worked in older versions gratuitously. Usually you need your
code to perform version detection and adapt its behavior accordingly. But
since the library code needs to be compiled for a particular version there
is some room customization there if desired. You will want your extension
to directly support at least two major version simultaneously so people can
upgrade the extension alongside the PostgreSQL version upgrade without
having to change their code on-the-fly.

David J.