Open Stack

Hi all,

So, Zane and I have discussed $subject and it was suggested I take this to
the list to reach consensus.

Recently, I've run into a couple of small but inconvenient limitations in
our intrinsic function implementations, specifically for str_replace and
repeat, both of which did not behave the way I expected when referencing
things via get_param/get_attr:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/heat/+bug/1539737
https://bugs.launchpad.net/heat/+bug/1546684

A patch fixing one has merged, another patch is under review.

I'm viewing both issues as bugs in our existing implementation, but Zane's
comment here https://review.openstack.org/#/c/275602/ prompted some
discussion ref if we should bump the version of the functions (like we did
recently for e.g json serialization via str_replace).

I guess it's arguable, but in these cases, I'm thinking they are bugfixes,
and not new features, but what do folks think, where do we draw the line
with intrinsic functions in terms of what is considered a fix or a
version-worthy change in behavior?

The real disadvantage of requiring a version bump for bug fixes is that
folks have to wait longer to consume the fixed version (because we can't
backport a new HOT version).  The advantage is that there's less chance
someone will write a template on a newly updated Heat install, then find it
doesn't work on an older Heat environment (containing the bug) - is this
any different to any other user-visible bug though?

Thanks,

Steve