Re: [PATCH 11/11] Deprecate stable non-JSON -device and -object

[Peter Maydell]

On Fri, 24 Sept 2021 at 10:14, Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> We want to switch both from QemuOpts to the keyval parser in the future,
> which results in some incompatibilities, mainly around list handling.
> Mark the non-JSON version of both as unstable syntax so that management
> tools switch to JSON and we can later make the change without breaking
> things.
>
> Signed-off-by: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>

> +Stable non-JSON ``-device`` and ``-object`` syntax (since 6.2)
> +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +If you rely on a stable interface for ``-device`` and ``-object`` that 
> doesn't
> +change incompatibly between QEMU versions (e.g. because you are using the 
> QEMU
> +command line as a machine interface in scripts rather than interactively), 
> use
> +JSON syntax for these options instead.
> +
> +There is no intention to remove support for non-JSON syntax entirely, but
> +future versions may change the way to spell some options.

As it stands, this is basically saying "pretty much anybody
using the command line, your stuff may break in future, instead
use some other interface you've never heard of, which doesn't
appear to be documented in the manual and which none of the
documentation's examples use". Is there some more limited
deprecation we can do rather than "the entire commandline
for almost all users" ?

thanks
-- PMM