[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 1/6] mbuf: add buffer offset field for flexible indirection

[Olivier Matz]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 02, 2018 at 11:50:03AM -0700, Yongseok Koh wrote:
> When attaching a mbuf, indirect mbuf has to point to start of buffer of
> direct mbuf. By adding buf_off field to rte_mbuf, this becomes more
> flexible. Indirect mbuf can point to any part of direct mbuf by calling
> rte_pktmbuf_attach_at().
> 
> Possible use-cases could be:
> - If a packet has multiple layers of encapsulation, multiple indirect
>   buffers can reference different layers of the encapsulated packet.
> - A large direct mbuf can even contain multiple packets in series and
>   each packet can be referenced by multiple mbuf indirections.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Yongseok Koh <yskoh at mellanox.com>

I think the current API is already able to do what you want.

1/ Here is a mbuf m with its data

               off
               <-->
                      len
          +----+   <---------->
          |    |
        +-|----v----------------------+
        | |    -----------------------|
m       | buf  |    XXXXXXXXXXX      ||
        |      -----------------------|
        +-----------------------------+


2/ clone m:

  c = rte_pktmbuf_alloc(pool);
  rte_pktmbuf_attach(c, m);

  Note that c has its own offset and length fields.


               off
               <-->
                      len
          +----+   <---------->
          |    |
        +-|----v----------------------+
        | |    -----------------------|
m       | buf  |    XXXXXXXXXXX      ||
        |      -----------------------|
        +------^----------------------+
               |
          +----+
indirect  |
        +-|---------------------------+
        | |    -----------------------|
c       | buf  |                     ||
        |      -----------------------|
        +-----------------------------+

                off    len
                <--><---------->


3/ remove some data from c without changing m

   rte_pktmbuf_adj(c, 10)   // at head
   rte_pktmbuf_trim(c, 10)  // at tail


Please let me know if it fits your needs.

Regards,
Olivier