[Bf-committers] Developers using #define in headers - how to ???

[pete larabell]

Hey all,

A recent occurrence one-again brought a question to my mind...

Is there a preferred method for developers to request "safe" #define's
in certain header files for in-development work they are doing, with
intent that such work will eventually go into trunk?

What I mean by that:

Recently I submitted for review the double edge matte compositor node.
In developing this node, I used the "next available node number" to
represent the node.

for me this was line 570 of source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_node.h

I had used:

#define CMP_NODE_DBLEDGMATTE    262

and a recent merge (which I'm certainly happy to see :) ) added:

#define CMP_NODE_MOVIECLIP      262
#define CMP_NODE_STABILIZE2D    263
#define CMP_NODE_TRANSFORM      264
#define CMP_NODE_MOVIEDISTORTION        265

which of course caused conflict.  Not a big deal, since it's a quick
fix in only one file for me, but it raised the question again in my
head:

Is there something already in place (possibly it's currently just "ask
on #blendercoders" which I supposed would have worked) where devs
could keep a running list of what eachother are doing in certain files
which require unique numbers so as to not overlap numbers like I did?

Again I'm certainly not complaining, and as stated this is incredibly
easy to fix, but in my case, and possibly due to my own negligence, I
had already submitted a patch for review before discovering this
overlap.

I know it could get messy if we have a "developers reservation list"
where people could go reserve arbitrary amounts of #define s for
projects, some of which may never see the light of day.

So all that being said: Is there some way for people like me to avoid
duplication such as this in the future? Or is it best to just ask in
IRC?

Cheers!
Peter