Renaming N-API to Node-API

This post was contributed by the Node-API team.

The reason for this blog post is to explain what motivated us to rename N-API to Node-API. The issue that is tracking the transition was: https://github.com/nodejs/abi-stable-node/issues/420

Background
You may have noticed N-API changed to Node-API in the documentation within the Node.js project. N-API has always stood for Node-API but was often pronounced NAPI. A concern was raised, that when pronounced that way, it could be mistaken for a derogatory term. We therefore made it our goal to clarify that N-API is Node-API whenever possible without introducing breaking changes.

What’s changing (only in more recent versions):

  • References: Documentation, blog posts, and similar will now refer to “Node-API”.

What’s not changing:

  • Old symbols: Existing symbols (eg. napi_create_reference) will remain the same. This ensures ABI stability, such that a previously compiled add-on will continue to load in newer Node versions.

We believe that we’ve made this change in a way that addresses the issue while limiting the impact to users of Node-API and hope this post helps you understand the approach and what to look out for. As always if you have any questions/concerns please open an issue in https://github.com/nodejs/abi-stable-node or https://github.com/nodejs/node-addon-api.

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Node.js is a collaborative open source project dedicated to building and supporting the Node.js platform. https://nodejs.org/en/

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Node.js

Node.js is a collaborative open source project dedicated to building and supporting the Node.js platform. https://nodejs.org/en/