Discussion(semver): Necessity of Comparator

[timreichen]

Background

ref: #4037 (review), #4037 (comment)

This issue explores, if Comparator is necessary in the semver module.

@kt3k What made you think that Comparator might not be necessary?

[kt3k]

Comparator looks like an internal utility interface. It is very limited version of SemVerRange. I think the users are usually interested in working with SemVerRanges and not Comparators.

Comparator still needs to be exposed as a public type because it's part of public SemVerRange, but I think the users are not interested in APIs which accepts/outputs comparators (e.g. parseComparator, testComparator)

[timreichen]

I agree. Comparator is probably not very useful as part of the public api. I think we should remove it from the public api.
However, working with SemVerRange directly is kinda clunky because

• it has an obsolete ranges property
• it represents an array of arrays of Comparators
  That might not be a problem when using parseRange, but it is when using objects. Creating a simple Range is a bit awkward:

const simpleRange = { ranges: [ [ { operator: "=", semver: { major: 1, minor: 2, patch: 3 } } ] ] }

We might need to find a good solution to simplify usage. (related: #3967)

[timreichen]

Ok, I will go forward and create a PR to deprecate all public Comparator functions.

[iuioiua]

Completed in #4131.