The goal of the binary compatiblity validator is check for binary incompatible changes between two sets of klibs. It does not handle Android / JVM targets, and within AndroidX those are checked by Metalava.

The project consists of a Klib dump parser that parses the format created by Kotlin/binary-compatibility-validator and a binary compatibility checker which compares two sets of LibraryAbis for incompatible changes. LibraryAbis can be obtained either by parsing dump text, or directly from a klib file using org.jetbrains.kotlin.library.abi.LibraryAbiReader.

The tool currently handles a subset of compatible changes listed below. Generally every change that is not compatible is assumed to be incompatible and will result in a check failure.

If you believe that a change is incorrectly marked compatible, or have a feature request for a type of compatible change that is not implemented, please file a bug.

• General
  • Change the internals of existing implementations.
  • Add a new concrete entity
    • add a new class of any modality
    • add a new function with implementation to a class.
  • Change a private entity to a publicly accessible entity.
  • Make an entity visibility weaker (more accessible).
  • Add or remove an annotation other than @BinarySignatureName.
• Classes
  • Classifier kinds
    • Changing a class to a data class
    • Changing a data class to a non-data class, as long as the ABI surface is the same
    • Changing an interface to a functional interface
  • Inheritance
    • Abstract class to be non-abstract open
    • Sealed class to be non-sealed open
    • Sealed class to be non-sealed abstract
    • Changing the order of supertypes
    • Changing a supertype to one of its subtypes, as long as the ABI surface is the same
• Functions
  • Function kind
    • Non-inline function to be inline
  • Changes to function parameters and receivers
    • Adding a default value to a parameter
    • Changing a default value for a parameter
  • Inheritance
    • Abstract function to non-abstract open
• Properties
  • Changes between property kinds
    • Non-const property to be const
    • Non-inline property to be inline
    • Changing a non-open read-only property to a mutable property
• Type parameters
  • Change from a reified type parameter to a regular one

Although any changes not in the above list are assumed to be incompatible, the following are explicitly tested for.

• General
  • Change a publicly accessible entity to a private entity.
  • Make an entity visibility stronger (less accessible).
  • Change an entity name.
  • Remove an existing concrete entity.
• Type Parameters
  • Adding new type parameters
  • Removing existing type parameters
  • Changing from a regular type parameter to a reified one
  • Changing type parameter variance
  • Changing the set of types in type parameter bounds
• Classes
  • Classifier kinds
    • To/from an enum class
    • To/from an annotation class
    • To/from a value class
    • Non-interface to/from an interface
    • Non-object to/from an object
    • Nested classifier to/from an inner classifier
    • Functional interface to an interface
• Inheritance
  • Non-abstract class to be abstract
  • Non-sealed classifier to be sealed
  • Changing the set of supertypes
• Functions
  • Function kinds
    • Inline function to be non-inline
    • To/from a suspending function
  • Parameters and receivers
    • Removing a default value from a parameter
    • Changing a vararg parameter to/from an array type parameter
    • Changing between inline, crossinline and noinline inline function parameters
    • Changing between an extension receiver and a function’s first parameter
• Properties
  • Property kinds
    • Const property to be non-const
    • Inline property to be non-inline
    • Mutable property to a read-only property
    • Open read-only property to an open mutable property

Within AndroidX, these tools are used for the tasks updateAbi and checkAbi, see androidx.build.binarycompatibilityvalidator.BinaryCompatibilityValidation for more information.

To run the parser stand-alone:

val parsed: LibraryAbi = KlibDumpParser(dumpFiletext).parse()

To run compatibility checks stand-alone:

BinaryCompatibilityChecker.checkAllBinariesAreCompatible(
    mapOf("<some target>" to libraryAbiAfter),
    mapOf("<some target>" to libraryAbiBefore),
)