RE: [RFC] lib/st_ring: add single thread ring

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

> From: Honnappa Nagarahalli [mailto:Honnappa.Nagarahalli@arm.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 22 August 2023 07.47
> 
> > From: Morten Brørup <mb@smartsharesystems.com>
> > Sent: Monday, August 21, 2023 2:37 AM
> >
> > > From: Honnappa Nagarahalli [mailto:honnappa.nagarahalli@arm.com]
> > > Sent: Monday, 21 August 2023 08.04
> > >
> > > Add a single thread safe and multi-thread unsafe ring data structure.
> > > This library provides an simple and efficient alternative to multi-
> > > thread safe ring when multi-thread safety is not required.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Honnappa Nagarahalli <honnappa.nagarahalli@arm.com>
> > > ---
> >
> > Good idea.
> >
> > However, I prefer it to be implemented in the ring lib as one more ring
> type.
> > That would also give us a lot of the infrastructure (management functions,
> > documentation and tests) for free.
> IMO, the current code for rte_ring seems complex with C11 and generic
> implementations, APIs for pointer objects vs APIs for flexible element size
> etc. I did not want to introduce one more flavor and make it more complex.

From the user perspective, I think one more ring flavor is less complex than an entirely separate (very similar) library with its own set of (very similar) APIs.

I agree that the ring lib has grown somewhat over-engineered, but please don't use that as an argument for making the same-thread ring a separate lib.

On the other hand: If the addition of an optimized same-thread ring flavor would require too many invasive modifications of the existing ring lib, I would accept that as an argument for not adding it as another ring flavor to the existing ring lib.

> The requirements are different as well. For ex: single thread ring needs APIs
> for dequeuing and enqueuing at both ends of the ring which is not applicable
> to existing RTE ring.

Yes, I will address this topic at the end of this mail.

> 
> But, I see how the existing infra can be reused easily.

This also goes for future infrastructure. I doubt that new infrastructure added to the ring lib will also be added to the same-thread ring lib... for reference, consider the PMDs containing copy-pasted code from the mempool lib... none of the later improvements of the mempool lib were implemented in those PMDs.

In essence, I think this lib overlaps the existing ring lib too much to justify making it a separate lib.

> 
> >
> > The ring lib already has performance-optimized APIs for single-consumer and
> > single-producer use, rte_ring_sc_dequeue_bulk() and
> > rte_ring_sp_enqueue_burst(). Similar performance-optimized APIs for single-
> > thread use could be added: rte_ring_st_dequeue_bulk() and
> > rte_ring_st_enqueue_burst().
> Yes, the names look fine.
> Looking through the code. We have the sync type enum:
> 
> /** prod/cons sync types */
> enum rte_ring_sync_type {
>         RTE_RING_SYNC_MT,     /**< multi-thread safe (default mode) */
>         RTE_RING_SYNC_ST,     /**< single thread only */
>         RTE_RING_SYNC_MT_RTS, /**< multi-thread relaxed tail sync */
>         RTE_RING_SYNC_MT_HTS, /**< multi-thread head/tail sync */
> };
> 
> The type RTE_RING_SYNC_ST needs better explanation (not a problem). But, this
> name would have been ideal to use for single thread ring.
> This enum does not need to be exposed to the users. However, there are
> rte_ring_get_prod/cons_sync_type etc which seem to be exposed to the user.
> This all means, we need to have a sync type name RTE_RING_SYNC_MT_UNSAFE (any
> other better name?) which then affects API naming.
> rte_ring_mt_unsafe_dequeue_bulk?

As always, naming is difficult.
The enum rte_ring_sync_type describes the producer and consumer independently, whereas this ring type uses the same thread for both producer and consumer.
I think we should avoid MT in the names for this variant. How about:

RTE_RING_SYNC_STPC /**< same thread for both producer and consumer */

And:

rte_ring_spc_dequeue_bulk() and rte_ring_spc_enqueue_burst()

> 
> >
> > Regardless if added to the ring lib or as a separate lib, "reverse" APIs
> (for single-
> > thread use only) and zero-copy APIs can be added at any time later.

As the only current use case for "reverse" (i.e. dequeue at tail, enqueue at head) APIs is for the same-thread ring flavor, we could start by adding only the specialized variants of the "reverse" APIs, rte_ring_spc_reverse_xxx(), and initially omit the generic rte_ring_reverse_xxx() APIs. (We need better names; I used "reverse" for explanation only.)