RE: Sign changes through function signatures

["Morten Brørup" <mb@smartsharesystems.com>]

> From: Thomas Monjalon [mailto:thomas@monjalon.net]
> Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2023 21.45
> 
> 02/02/2023 21:26, Tyler Retzlaff:
> > On Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 02:23:39PM -0500, Ben Magistro wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > While making some updates to our code base for 22.11.1 that were
> missed in
> > > our first pass through, we hit the numa node change[1].  In the
> process of
> > > updating our code, we noticed that a couple functions
> (rx/tx_queue_setup,
> > > maybe more that we aren't using) state they accept `SOCKET_ID_ANY`
> but the
> > > function signature then asks for an unsigned integer while
> `SOCKET_ID_ANY`
> > > is `-1`.  Following it through the redirect to the "real" function
> it also
> > > asks for an unsigned integer which is then passed on to one or more
> > > functions asking for an integer.  As an example using the the i40e
> driver
> > > -- we would call `rte_eth_tx_queue_setup` [2] which ultimately
> calls
> > > `i40e_dev_tx_queue_setup`[3] which finally calls
> `rte_zmalloc_socket`[4]
> > > and `rte_eth_dma_zone_reserve`[5].
> > >
> > > I guess what I am looking for is clarification on if this is
> intentional or
> > > if this is additional cleanup that may need to be completed/be
> desirable so
> > > that signs are maintained through the call paths and avoid
> potentially
> > > producing sign-conversion warnings.  From the very quick glance I
> took at
> > > the i40e driver, it seems these are just passed through to other
> functions
> > > and no direct use/manipulation occurs (at least in the mentioned
> functions).
> >
> > i believe this is just sloppyness with sign in our api surface. i too
> > find it frustrating that use of these api force either explicit
> > casts or suffer having to suppress warnings.
> >
> > in the past examples of this have been cleaned up without full
> deprecation
> > notices but there are a lot of instances. i also feel (unpopular
> opinion)
> > that for some integer types like this that have constrained range /
> number
> > spaces it would be of value to introduce a typedef that can be used
> > consistently.
> >
> > for now you'll just have to add the casts and hopefully in the future
> we
> > will fix the api making them unnecessary. of course feel free to
> submit
> > patches too, it would be great to have these cleaned up.
> 
> I agree it should be cleaned up.
> Those IDs should accept negative values.
> Not sure which type we should choose (int, int32_t, or a typedef).

Why would we use a signed socket ID? We don't use signed port IDs. To me, unsigned seems the way to go. (A minor detail: With unsigned we can use the entire range of values minus one (for the magic "any" value), whereas with signed we can only use the positive range of values. This detail is completely irrelevant when using 32 bit for socket ID, but could be relevant if using fewer bits.)

Also, we don't need 32 bit for socket ID. 8 or 16 bit should suffice, like port ID. But reducing from 32 bit would probably cause major ABI breakage.

> 
> Another thing to check is the name of the variable.
> It should be a socket ID when talking about CPU,
> and a NUMA node ID when talking about memory.
> 
> And last but not the least,
> how can we keep ABI compatibility?
> I hope we can use function versioning to avoid deprecation and
> breaking.
> 
> Trials and suggestions are welcome.

Signedness is not the only problem with the socket ID. The meaning of SOCKET_ID_ANY is excessively overloaded. If we want to clean this up, we should consider the need for another magic value SOCKET_ID_NONE for devices connected to the chipset, as discussed in this other email thread [1]. And as discussed there, there are also size problems, because some device structures use 8 bit to hold the socket ID.

And functions should always return -1, never SOCKET_ID_ANY, to indicate error.

[1]: http://inbox.dpdk.org/dev/98CBD80474FA8B44BF855DF32C47DC35D87684@smartserver.smartshare.dk/

I only bring warnings and complications to the discussion here, no solutions. Sorry! :-(