Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] app/testpmd: Document what the application does.

[Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>]

10/09/2021 19:57, Ben Pfaff:
> I could not find anything in the documentation that says what
> testpmd does.  This should save other people time trying to
> figure that out in the future.

Good move indeed :)

> --- a/doc/guides/testpmd_app_ug/run_app.rst
> +++ b/doc/guides/testpmd_app_ug/run_app.rst
> @@ -15,6 +15,12 @@ a list of available EAL command-line options.
>  Testpmd Command-line Options
>  ----------------------------
>  
> +By default, testpmd receives packets on each configured port and
> +forwards the received packets to its paired port.  Ports 0 and 1 are
> +paired, as are ports 2 and 3, and so on.  With an odd number of ports,
> +the last port is paired with itself: packets received on the port are
> +sent back out on the same port.

So the intent is to say what is the default behaviour?

We could also update the introduction which is outdated:
"
The testpmd application can be used to test the DPDK
in a packet forwarding mode and also to access NIC hardware features
such as Flow Director.
It also serves as a example of how to build a more fully-featured
application using the DPDK SDK.
"

The last sentence should be removed.
The first sentence is a bit outdated.
We should say "testpmd is a tool to test ethdev NIC features".

May I take the opportunity of this patch to improve this intro as well?