Re: [PATCH v2 4/5] dts: add ability to start/stop testpmd ports

[Luca Vizzarro <Luca.Vizzarro@arm.com>]

On 23/08/2024 13:16, Juraj Linkeš wrote:
> As Jeremy mentioned, adding the verify argument may be worthwhile, but 
> maybe only if we actually identify a usecase where we wouldn't want to 
> do the verification.

Yeah, as I pointed out, it feels unlikely to pretend that they are 
started (or stopped). I think that could cause my unpredicted behaviour 
and confusion. But also as said already, it can always be added on demand.

> I also have two other points:
> 1. Do we want a decorator that does both - starting and stopping? Is the 
> idea to have all methods that require a certain state to be decorated 
> and in that case we don't need this? E.g. if there are multiple 
> configuration steps, only the first one stops the ports (if started) and 
> we start the ports only when a method needs that (such as starting pkt 
> fwd)? I think this workflow should be documented in the class docstring 
> (the important part being that starting and stopping of ports is done 
> automatically).

The way I envisioned these decorators is by using a lazy approach. I 
don't think it may be right to eagerly restart ports after stopping 
them, because maybe we want to run another command after that will stop 
them again. So only start and stop as needed. Ideally every port that 
requires a specific state of the ports need to be decorated. I went 
through all the methods in the class to check which would and which 
wouldn't, and it seems alright like this.

> 2. Do we want decorators that start/stop just one port? I guess this is 
> basically useless with the above workflow.

Would it actually matter? We are not really using the other ports in 
parallel here I believe. May bring unnecessary complexity. I am thinking 
that maybe if needed it could be added later.