I understand that different pages are generally being made for classic vs retail objects in the game (quests, npcs, etc.). However, it doesn't quite make sense to split things up for the API when it is so similar and often varies by return value.
To resolve this, I propose ammending the Patch Changes section of the Help:API_Function_articles boilerplate to include subheadings for API differences in Retail and Classic editions. I recommend only doing this for functions which exist in both editions but behave differently; so excluding functions that were simply dropped in 1.12.2 (but including functions dropped later on in 1.12.3 onwards such as GetTotemInfo).
For an example, see UnitHealth where I show under retail the change made in 2008 while under classic I show how this was reverted in 1.12.2 versus the 8.0 code base. I use a different format in GetActionCount where the only changes were in classic.
This will assist addon developers who are navigating the API differences between classic and retail, which I feel is a subset community with slightly different needs than people looking for lore or in-game details.
-- DDC (talk) 05:26, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
- I'm pinging someone related to API edits Xporc (talk) 13:22, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
- I agree, this would help show if any API behaves differently in classic versus retail Ketho (talk) 15:46, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
- Changes now made at Help:API_Function_articles. I took a real-world example using GetCVar to illustrate how two separate code bases (retail and classic) can result in confusing differences if everything were ordered solely by date. DDC (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC)