Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 3/4] eal: allow checking CPU flags by name

[Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 03:22:14PM +0200, David Marchand wrote:
>    On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 5:42 PM Bruce Richardson
>    <[1]bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
> 
>      Rather than using enum values for CPU flags, which means the symbols
>      don't
>      exist on other architectures, provide a flag lookup by name,
>      allowing us to
>      unconditionally check for a CPU flag.
> 
>    Did you consider passing a string for the CPU architecture rather than
>    an enum?
>    It would have to be compared to RTE_ARCH in
>    rte_cpu_get_flagname_enabled.
>    Or to accomodate with x86_64/i686, this could be a cpu arch family.
>    This avoids adding a new C type that seems quite limited wrt its uses.
>    --
>    David Marchand
>

I'm not sure I really see the value in having string names for the
architecture values, I think it would be a lot more clunky to manage rather
than having an enum value. The key difference vs the flags is that the
flags are only valid per-architecture while the architecture defines can be
globally valid, and secondly there is a finite, and small, number of
architectures compared to the number of flags supported.

If you feel strongly about it I can investigate it, but I'm not sure I see
the value in doing so right now if the only benefit is avoiding the enum.

/Bruce