[dpdk-dev] [PATCH 1/3] rte_ethdev: Add API function to read dev clock

Shahaf Shuler shahafs at mellanox.com
Sun Dec 23 07:06:29 CET 2018


Ferruh,
I share the same thoughts as Tom here.

>Ferruh Yigit wrote :
>> Is this a common enough feature to include into ethdev abstraction layer? Or a
>> feature for a single vendor?
>
>I found reference to mbuf’s timestamp field only in MLX5. I think it is the only one to support timestamp offloading. This new API is only useful to make sense out of the timestamp value. And without this patch, timestamp offloading is completely useless…
>
>What would be the other way ? Define something in mlx5 header and ask clients to check for the driver and call the specific API ?
>
>I see reference to timestamp offloading in Netronome Agilio, CC-ing maintainers. Is timestamp offloading a feature you could potentially provide ? Would it be host time reference or a value that need conversion with an API like this?

I don’t think that the number of vendors which implement the feature at current time is the qualifier for a feature to enter. Rather we should consider how generic it is and its need in the world of networking (since it is ethdev).
IMO, It is perfectly reasonable to expose a generic channel to read the device clock, same as reading device register (which exists).


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