Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 4/4] ethdev: add helpers to move to the new offloads API

[Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>]

18/09/2017 13:11, Ananyev, Konstantin:
> From: Richardson, Bruce
> > On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 11:57:03AM +0100, Ananyev, Konstantin wrote:
> > > From: Richardson, Bruce
> > > > On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 10:02:26AM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > > > > 13/09/2017 23:42, Ananyev, Konstantin:
> > > > > > From: Thomas Monjalon [mailto:thomas@monjalon.net]
> > > > > > > 13/09/2017 14:56, Ananyev, Konstantin:
> > > > > > > > From: Thomas Monjalon [mailto:thomas@monjalon.net]
> > > > > > > Konstantin, I would like your opinion about the proposal below.
> > > > > > > It is about making on the fly configuration more generic.
> > > > > > > You say it is possible to configure VLAN on the fly,
> > > > > > > and I think we should make it possible for other offload features.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It would be a good thing, but I don't think it is possible for all offloads.
> > > > > > For some of them you still have to stop the queue(port) first.
[...]
[technical details skipped]
[...]
> > > > > > If so, then it seems reasonable to me.
> > > > >
> > > > > Good, thank you
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > Sorry I'm a bit late to the review, but the above suggestion of separate
> > > > APIs for enabling offloads, seems much better than passing in the flags
> > > > in structures to the existing calls. From what I see all later revisions
> > > > of this patchset still use the existing flags parameter to setup calls
> > > > method.
> > > >
> > > > Some advantages that I see of the separate APIs:
> > > > * allows some settings to be set before start, and others afterwards,
> > > >   with an appropriate return value if dynamic config not supported.
> > > > * we can get fine grained error reporting from these - the set calls can
> > > >   all return the mask indicating what offloads could not be applied -
> > > >   zero means all ok, 1 means a problem with that setting. This may be
> > > >   easier for the app to use than feature discovery in some cases.
> > > > * for those PMDs which support configuration at a per-queue level, it
> > > >   can allow the user to specify the per-port settings as a default, and
> > > >   then override that value at the queue level, if you just want one queue
> > > >   different from the rest.
> > >
> > > I think we all in favor to have a separate API here.
> > > Though from the discussion we had at latest TB, I am not sure it is doable
> > > in 17.11 timeframe.
> > 
> > Ok, so does that imply no change in this release, and that the existing
> > set is to be ignored?
> 
> No, my understanding the current plan is to go forward with Shahaf patches,
> and then apply another one (new set/get API) on top of them.

Yes, it is what we agreed (hope to see it in minutes).
If someone can do these new patches in 17.11 timeframe, it's great!
Bruce, do you want to make it a try?