[dpdk-dev] [PATCHv4 5/5] doc: Add ABI __experimental tag documentation

[Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>]

Document the need to add the __experimental tag to appropriate functions

Signed-off-by: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
CC: Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>
CC: "Mcnamara, John" <john.mcnamara@intel.com>
CC: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
---
 doc/guides/contributing/versioning.rst | 9 +++++++++
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.rst b/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.rst
index 400090628..53f56397e 100644
--- a/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.rst
+++ b/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.rst
@@ -50,6 +50,15 @@ those new APIs and start finding issues with them, new DPDK APIs will be
 automatically marked as ``experimental`` to allow for a period of stabilization
 before they become part of a tracked ABI.
 
+Note that marking an API as experimental is a two step process.  To mark an API
+as experimental, the symbols which are desired to be exported must be placed in
+an EXPERIMENTAL version block in the corresponding libraries' version map
+script. Secondly, the corresponding definitions of those exported functions, and
+their forward declarations (in the development header files), must be marked
+with the __experimental tag (see rte_compat.h).  The DPDK build makefiles
+preform a check to ensure that the map file and the C code reflect the same
+list of symbols.
+
 ABI versions, once released, are available until such time as their
 deprecation has been noted in the Release Notes for at least one major release
 cycle. For example consider the case where the ABI for DPDK 2.0 has been
-- 
2.14.3