[Pythonmac-SIG] making a C extension compatible across OS versions?

[has]

Bob wrote:

>>Will extensions built on 10.4 work on 10.3, or will I have to create separate OS-specific binaries for those as well?
>
>Maybe, it depends.
>
>You really should be building packages on the least common denominator, you have to test there anyway.  It's hard to do right, Xcode is the only environment that can properly manage SDKs and such, Apple didn't really put that functionality anywhere else, and autoconf REALLY gets in the way (i.e. ./configure).

Not a problem for other modules where the APIs are the same over multiple OSes. (I've had no problems so far using .so binaries built on Jaguar under Tiger, for example.)

Given that OSATerminology needs to use Tiger's weak-lined OSACopyScriptingDefinition function when running under Tiger, is it possible/practical to build it on Panther? It sounds like the easiest thing would be to put the Tiger-only code in a separate file and build that on Tiger, and build the remainder on an older OS as before; then have osaterminology import or ignore the Tiger-only extension at runtime as appropriate.

Many thanks,

has
-- 
http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/