[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v6 12/17] pci: add a helper for device name

Thomas Monjalon thomas.monjalon at 6wind.com
Fri Jul 15 11:56:38 CEST 2016


2016-07-15 15:09, Shreyansh jain:
> On Thursday 14 July 2016 10:25 PM, Jan Viktorin wrote:
> > What is meant by "resources" here?
> 
> This has historic context (from earlier version of this patch). 
> But I could relate the word 'resources' to EAL representation of devices - whether PCI or Crypto.
> Or, Resource == Device.

We need to define a precise wording, especially for the words
	- interface
	- resource
	- device
	- driver
	- module
Following are my thoughts:

An interface is a view of a resource through an API (e.g. an ethdev port).
A resource is a well identified hardware (e.g. a PCI device id).
A device is a hardware function (e.g. a networking port).
Note that some PCI NICs have only one PCI device id for several ports
(Chelsio and Mellanox cases). That's why we need to distinguish device
and resource.

A driver is the code handling a device.
I have read the word module in some patch proposals but I don't really know
what it refers to. Is it a group of drivers in the same file/directory?


More information about the dev mailing list