From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from wes1-so1.wedos.net (wes1-so1.wedos.net [46.28.106.15]) by dpdk.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7B715587 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:32:56 +0200 (CEST) Received: from pcviktorin.fit.vutbr.cz (pcviktorin.fit.vutbr.cz [147.229.13.147]) by wes1-so1.wedos.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 3rrVmm44Gsz3qb; Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:32:56 +0200 (CEST) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:32:20 +0200 From: Jan Viktorin To: Thomas Monjalon Cc: Shreyansh jain , dev@dpdk.org, david.marchand@6wind.com Message-ID: <20160715133220.1fa4697a@pcviktorin.fit.vutbr.cz> In-Reply-To: <3291851.1fECXE5TVn@xps13> References: <1466510566-9240-1-git-send-email-shreyansh.jain@nxp.com> <20160714185546.6e483b40@jvn> <5788AF6E.9080203@nxp.com> <3291851.1fECXE5TVn@xps13> Organization: RehiveTech MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v6 12/17] pci: add a helper for device name X-BeenThere: dev@dpdk.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list List-Id: patches and discussions about DPDK List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:32:57 -0000 On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:56:38 +0200 Thomas Monjalon wrote: > 2016-07-15 15:09, Shreyansh jain: > > On Thursday 14 July 2016 10:25 PM, Jan Viktorin wrote: > > > What is meant by "resources" here? > > > > This has historic context (from earlier version of this patch). > > But I could relate the word 'resources' to EAL representation of devices - whether PCI or Crypto. > > Or, Resource == Device. > > We need to define a precise wording, especially for the words > - interface > - resource > - device > - driver > - module > Following are my thoughts: > > An interface is a view of a resource through an API (e.g. an ethdev port). > A resource is a well identified hardware (e.g. a PCI device id). > A device is a hardware function (e.g. a networking port). > Note that some PCI NICs have only one PCI device id for several ports > (Chelsio and Mellanox cases). That's why we need to distinguish device > and resource. > > A driver is the code handling a device. > I have read the word module in some patch proposals but I don't really know > what it refers to. Is it a group of drivers in the same file/directory? Well, yes, initially there was proposed a kind of module. However, after David as sent the patchset prepare for rte_device/driver, you can see that there is no need for such object (probably). A module might be helpful when thinking about the metadata (as done by Neil Horman). But as far as I know there was no need for this... So a module has no data abstraction now and I am not going to make any. Jan