Adding new field kind should be considered breaking change

@MichalStrehovsky

In #111584, the alignment of ref struct types was relaxed if the type didn't contained object or byref fields. The previous behavior was that a ref struct was always pointer aligned. This change resulted in the following question:

Do we need to add this to breaking-change-rules.md? Would we consider it a breaking change to add a ref field to a ref struct that didn't previously have a ref field?

_Originally posted by @MichalStrehovsky in #111584 (review)

Initially this was accepted but then reverted due to pushback about the layout of types was an implementation details unless specifically documented.

If the libraries folks agree, I think it would be fine to explicitly match the current Roslyn behavior and say that adding first field of a new kind to an existing value type is disallowed change. Kind can be any of objref, byref or generic type argument, and the rule applies recursively.

Introducing new significant state in existing value types is close to impossible to do in compatible way for other reasons (e.g. it is why we have both DateTime and DateTimeOffset), so these situations do not come up in practice. I guess it is the reason why nobody bothered to mention it in the breaking changes doc up until now.

Originally posted by @jkotas in #111584 (comment)

The question now goes to the Libraries team, @stephentoub, and perhaps the .NET API review team, @bartonjs, to help us decide if adding a new kind of field (that is, objref, byref or generic type argument), to an existing value type should be considered a change that should result in a breaking change announcement.

decide if adding a new kind of field (that is, objref, byref or generic type argument), to an existing value type should be considered a change that should result in a breaking change announcement

Yes, anywhere adding a new field to a struct could impact how Roslyn handles that type should be breaking. There's also the issue of tearing, where adding an additional field to a one primitive/reference field struct could introduce the possibility of tearing, but we generally haven't documented that as breaking (though we also rarely do it).

adding first field of a new kind to an existing value type is disallowed change. Kind can be any of objref, byref or generic type argument, and the rule applies recursively.

I am not sure whether this is accurate. Should objrefs and byrefs be treated as the same kind? Adding an objref field to a ref struct with a ref field should be fine. Also, adding a byref field to a ref struct with an objref field should be fine too.

I am not sure whether this is accurate. Should objrefs and byrefs be treated as the same kind? Adding an objref field to a ref struct with a ref field should be fine. Also, adding a byref field to a ref struct with an objref field should be fine too.

From the perspective of the newly added layout support that started this conversation, yes, they have the same impact.

Yes, anywhere adding a new field to a struct could impact how Roslyn handles that type should be breaking.

Roslyn isn't the issue in this specific case, although I do agree that impacting Roslyn should be a breaking change. The question that started the current conversation is only currently detected at run-time and would result in a TypeLoadException.

Motivating example:

ref struct FxType
{
    public int F;
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
ref struct UserType
{
    public int F1;

    [FieldOffset(4)] 
    public FxType F2;
}

In the next release of .NET, the FxType is updated to the following causing the loading of UserType to fail on a 64-bit runtime.

ref struct FxType
{
    public int F;
    public ref int RF; // Could also be an objref instead of byref.
}

The question that started the current conversation is only currently detected at run-time and would result in a TypeLoadException.

Then definitely yes :)

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Adding new field kind should be considered breaking change #112033

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Adding new field kind should be considered breaking change #112033

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stephentoub commented on Jan 31, 2025

jkotas commented on Jan 31, 2025

AaronRobinsonMSFT commented on Jan 31, 2025

stephentoub commented on Jan 31, 2025

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