Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] doc: announce API change for rte_ether.h

[Panu Matilainen <pmatilai@redhat.com>]

On 12/11/2015 01:27 AM, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> Plan to change to <net/ethernet.h> version of struct ether_addr in
> DPDK 2.3. The change in DPDK source is trivial but it will impact
> source compatablilty therefore notification is necessary.
>
> Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
> ---
>   doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst | 5 +++++
>   1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst b/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst
> index 1c7ab01..8ecb990 100644
> --- a/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst
> +++ b/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst
> @@ -19,3 +19,8 @@ Deprecation Notices
>     and table action handlers will be updated:
>     the pipeline parameter will be added, the packets mask parameter will be
>     either removed (for input port action handler) or made input-only.
> +
> +* librte_ether: The structure ether_addr in DPDK will be replaced
> +  by using the standard header file <net/ethernet.h>. The structure
> +  size will be the same (no ABI impact), but the structure field name
> +  will change from addr_bytes[] to ether_addr_octet[].
>

I hope there is some other reason/benefit besides getting rid of a 
three-line custom struct definition. It may be a trivial 
s/addr_bytes/ether_addr_octet/ change but it touches a lot of places all 
over the DPDK codebase alone, and for 3rd party developers such (at 
least seemingly) gratuitous renames are really irritating.

	- Panu -