Re: [PATCH v8 0/3] Split logging functionality out of EAL

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

On Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 02:46:13PM +0200, David Marchand wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 3:36 PM Bruce Richardson
> <bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > There is a general desire to reduce the size and scope of EAL. To this
> > end, this patchset makes a (very) small step in that direction by taking
> > the logging functionality out of EAL and putting it into its own library
> > that can be built and maintained separately.
> >
> > As with the first RFC for this, the main obstacle is the "fnmatch"
> > function which is needed by both EAL and the new log function when
> > building on windows. While the function cannot stay in EAL - or we would
> > have a circular dependency, moving it to a new library or just putting
> > it in the log library have the disadvantages that it then "leaks" into
> > the public namespace without an rte_prefix, which could cause issues.
> > Since only a single function is involved, subsequent versions take a
> > different approach to v1, and just moves the offending function to be a
> > static function in a header file. This allows use by multiple libs
> > without conflicting names or making it public.
> >
> > The other complication, as explained in v1 RFC was that of multiple
> > implementations for different OS's. This is solved here in the same
> > way as v1, by including the OS in the name and having meson pick the
> > correct file for each build. Since only one file is involved, there
> > seemed little need for replicating EAL's separate subdirectories
> > per-OS.
> 
> Series applied, thanks Bruce for this first step.
> 
> As mentionned during the maintainers weekly call yesterday, this is
> only a first "easy" step but, thinking of next steps, more splitting
> may not be that easy.
> 

I took a look after doing this patchset to try and find more easy to
extract parts, but did not find many. The EAL is pretty intertwined now.
As I look at it, there are really two ways to try and dis-entangle it - 
bottoms-up or top-down. This patchset is an example of the former, taking a
logical set of related APIs and pulling them out into a separate library
that EAL can depend upon. There may be some other API-sets like this we can
pull out, but in my search I didn't find any.

The other tops-down approach may be worth looking at too. We can try and
take the top-level EAL init function and separate it out into a separate
initialization library (which may be called "EAL" with the rest being
called something else). I have not tried this approach to see how it goes,
but pulling out the init may allow further dis-entangling of other parts of
EAL.

/Bruce