[RFC PATCH 00/12] Add config-time dependency tracking

[David Marchand]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2026 at 13:00, Bruce Richardson
<bruce.richardson at intel.com> wrote:
>
> Add configuration time dependency tracking for libs and drivers in DPDK,
> so that when a user requests a driver, all dependent drivers also get
> enabled. Similarly with libraries. What is not enabled in this RFC is
> support for enabling libraries based on driver requests, or enabling
> either libs or drivers based on the enable-apps config option. I've
> omitted the former for now, because it would involve moving more logic
> out of the lib/meson.build file and drivers/meson.build files into the
> top-level one, something I'm a little hesitant to do for now. The
> addition of apps only adds value once the cross-type dependency tracking
> is enabled, since no app depends on any others.
>
> The first 5 patches in this series are cleanups and bug fixes. The
> following patches then implement the dependency tracking. While I
> investigated having meson parse each components meson.build file
> initially, without actually building it, this failed to work due to
> logic other than variable assignments in many drivers.
>
> Instead, python scripts are used to manage the dependency list. For
> easier debug, and future introspection this dependency management is
> split between two scripts - the first generates a dependency table file
> which it writes to the build folder, allowing us to analyse this
> post-build if so desired. The second script uses this file to actually
> compute the necessary per-component dependencies.
>
> The final patch of the series is a major reduction in the number of
> required components for doing DPDK builds. We completely remove the list
> of required libraries, and assume that a minimal build should only
> require enough libraries to build EAL. However, EAL does assume that we
> have a few additional buses, for example, EAL args are present for pci
> and vdev. Also, in order for mempools to work, we always need to have
> the default mempool ring driver build. That means that our de-facto
> minimal build target set is the set of components needed to build
> "bus/pci,bus/vdev,mempool/ring" (which would include EAL in the output,
> which is why we can remove any hard-coded library lists)
>
> Bruce Richardson (12):
>   build: fix name of base library object
>   build: fix ignoring requested driver when class is disabled
>   build: prevent overlap of enable and disable lists
>   build: add direct support for optional dependencies
>   net/bond: rename directory for consistency
>   build: add script to generate dependencies list
>   build: use recursive addition for enabled libraries option
>   build: use recursive addition for enabled drivers option
>   build: improve error reporting for unbuildable components
>   build: add EAL common directory to global include list
>   build: make EAL an explicit dependency
>   build: simplify mandatory library lists
>
>  MAINTAINERS                                   |   2 +-
>  app/meson.build                               |  15 +-
>  app/proc-info/meson.build                     |   4 +-
>  app/test-bbdev/meson.build                    |  18 +-
>  app/test-crypto-perf/meson.build              |   4 +-
>  app/test-pmd/meson.build                      |  50 ++---
>  app/test/meson.build                          |   6 -
>  buildtools/get-deps.py                        | 203 ++++++++++++++++++
>  buildtools/meson.build                        |   2 +
>  buildtools/resolve-deps.py                    |  80 +++++++
>  devtools/test-meson-builds.sh                 |   3 +-
>  doc/api/doxy-api.conf.in                      |   2 +-
>  .../link_bonding_poll_mode_drv_lib.rst        |   2 +-
>  doc/guides/testpmd_app_ug/testpmd_funcs.rst   |   2 +-
>  drivers/common/mlx5/linux/meson.build         |   1 -
>  drivers/meson.build                           |  85 ++++++--
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/bonding_testpmd.c   |   0
>  .../eth_bond_8023ad_private.h                 |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/eth_bond_private.h  |   0
>  drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/meson.build     |   1 -
>  drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond.h  |   0
>  .../{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_8023ad.c   |   0
>  .../{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_8023ad.h   |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_alb.c  |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_alb.h  |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_api.c  |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_args.c |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_flow.c |   0
>  .../net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_pmd.c  |   0
>  drivers/net/intel/ice/meson.build             |   7 +-
>  drivers/net/meson.build                       |   2 +-
>  lib/acl/meson.build                           |   1 +
>  lib/cfgfile/meson.build                       |   1 +
>  lib/cryptodev/meson.build                     |   2 +-
>  lib/dmadev/meson.build                        |   2 +-
>  lib/eal/meson.build                           |   6 +-
>  lib/ethdev/meson.build                        |   2 +-
>  lib/eventdev/meson.build                      |   1 -
>  lib/ipsec/meson.build                         |   2 +-
>  lib/jobstats/meson.build                      |   1 +
>  lib/log/meson.build                           |   1 -
>  lib/mempool/meson.build                       |   2 +-
>  lib/meson.build                               |  76 +++----
>  lib/meter/meson.build                         |   1 +
>  lib/metrics/meson.build                       |   2 +-
>  lib/pci/meson.build                           |   1 +
>  lib/ptr_compress/meson.build                  |   1 +
>  lib/rawdev/meson.build                        |   2 +-
>  lib/ring/meson.build                          |   2 +-
>  lib/stack/meson.build                         |   1 +
>  lib/timer/meson.build                         |   1 +
>  meson.build                                   |  21 ++
>  52 files changed, 478 insertions(+), 140 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 buildtools/get-deps.py
>  create mode 100644 buildtools/resolve-deps.py
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/bonding_testpmd.c (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/eth_bond_8023ad_private.h (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/eth_bond_private.h (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/meson.build (95%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond.h (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_8023ad.c (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_8023ad.h (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_alb.c (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_alb.h (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_api.c (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_args.c (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_flow.c (100%)
>  rename drivers/net/{bonding => bond}/rte_eth_bond_pmd.c (100%)

Interesting series.

I did not review in depth, but it seems promising.
The first 4 (and maybe the 5th one) patches can go to 26.11 right now.

I noticed a little formatting issue in patch 9 commitlog.

One thing bothers me.. but I did not play enough with the options maybe...

Could we use new build options (request_libs/apps/drivers or better named) ?
This series changes the enable_libs/apps/drivers semantics and will
likely result in confused users.
(and we would need no support for mixing old and new options)


-- 
David Marchand