Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v5 1/4] ethdev: add support for raw flow type for flow director

[Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>]

Hi,

10/10/2017 22:28, Kirill Rybalchenko:
> Add new structure rte_eth_raw_flow to the union rte_eth_fdir_flow
> to support filter for raw flow type.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Kirill Rybalchenko <kirill.rybalchenko@intel.com>

This description does not explain why you add this new flow director type.
It seems you are allowing a new feature to filter custom protocols.

As I replied on v2, you are implementing your new feature with
a deprecated API (there is a deprecation notice without any deadline).
It is dangerous because this new use case will be settled on top
of a fragile foundation. And because of these new users, it will be
harder to drop this API as announced.
It is also dangerous because you are not trying to implement your
feature with the new rte_flow API. So we cannot be sure that it
will fit for every use cases.
If rte_flow is not good enough, we must improve it.

This is my suggestion:
1/ Implement this interesting feature with rte_flow.
2/ Switch every other use cases to rte_flow.
3/ Let's agree on a date to drop the legacy flow director API.

So this is a NACK.
Please let's move forward.