Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 1/2] tests: Fix unit tests for shared builds

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

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 12:10:55PM -0400, Aaron Conole wrote:
> Aaron Conole <aconole@redhat.com> writes:
> 
> > Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com> writes:
> >
> >> On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 10:50:29AM -0400, Aaron Conole wrote:
> >>> From: Michael Santana <msantana@redhat.com>
> >>> 
> >>> Currently many unit tests fail when running tests under shared builds.
> >>> This happens because of missing driver dependencies. This is fixed by
> >>> explicitly linking in missing drivers for the test application.
> >>> 
> >>> before and after (clang):
> >>> https://travis-ci.com/Maickii/dpdk-2/jobs/212329160#L623
> >>> https://travis-ci.com/Maickii/dpdk-2/jobs/212335912#L620
> >>> 
> >>> Suggested-by: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>
> >>> Suggested-by: David Marchand <david.marchand@redhat.com>
> >>> Signed-off-by: Michael Santana <msantana@redhat.com>
> >>> Signed-off-by: Aaron Conole <aconole@redhat.com>
> >>> ---
> >> Rather than linking in the libraries explicitly, can you have the build do
> >> a "ninja install" at the end to place the libraries and drivers in their
> >> correct paths. That should mean that the test app (via eal) auto-loads all
> >> drivers from EAL_PMD_PATH (/usr/local/...). It would save having to make
> >> further changes to this file to link in any additional drivers.
> 
> Oops, forgot to include a link to a build where I did this.  It's
> failing (you can see the corresponding commit at
> https://github.com/orgcandman/dpdk/commit/ccba975bdfe851b4c8ec3f208451bb105317b76d):
> 
>   https://travis-ci.org/orgcandman/dpdk/jobs/566044409
> 
I think the error may be due to having some drivers already linked in while
trying to reload all drivers dynamically. The dynamic loading of drivers I
actually think we could make more robust. For example:

* only load .so files. If you pass in the drivers path from the build, it
  errors out trying to load .a files
* when loading directories, maybe skip any files which don't have a "librte"
  prefix - anyone who has their own drivers they want loaded can add the
  prefix or load it explicitly via -d
* alternatively, skip files which don't have a pmdinfo section in them
* allow skipping of drivers which are already linked in
* don't fail the whole process if one driver fails to load from a
  directory.

Regards,
/Bruce