Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v4 2/2] ethdev: add sanity checks to functions

[Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2015 at 04:29:12PM +0100, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> 2015-11-24 14:56, Bruce Richardson:
> > On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 07:53:09AM -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > > On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 12:21:07 +0000
> > > Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
> > > > -static inline uint32_t
> > > > +static inline int
> 
> Are we talking about this change only?
> Or the move in the first patch from .c to .h?
> 

The move is the ABI breaker.

> [...]
> > > This breaks ABI since older application built with debug will try
> > > and find the shared library entry for the routine.
> > 
> > Ok, so assuming we care about the ABI for debug builds,
> 
> The return type is not only for debug build?
> 
> > is it enough to just push a patch with a deprecation notice for this for 2.2,
> 
> The ABI is already broken for ethdev in 2.2.
> So the symbol move should not hurt more.
> And the API change (return type) should not be a big deal,
> but at least an API change notification is required in the release notes.
> Other opinion?

Ok, it makes sense.

> 
> > or do I need to see about doing a new patchset with the NEXT_ABI macros
> > included in it? My preference is obviously for the former.
> 
> No NEXT_ABI is required when ABI is already broken IMHO.

If ethdev ABI is already broken, then sure, this additional break for debug
build is no big deal, I think.

I can do a respin of these two patches to include an API note for release notes.
However, I see now that I also need to remove the functions from the map file.
I could do with some help to make sure I do this correctly though. Reading through
the doc on ABI versionning, it looks like I should completely move all existing
functions from the existing release versions and move them to a new 2.2 section,
dropping the four now-inline functions along the way. Is this the correct thing
to do?

/Bruce