[dpdk-dev] Consider improving the DPDK contribution processes

[Jerin Jacob]

>
> Here are a couple of anonymous examples from the mailing list:
>
> An infrequent contributor got minor coding style suggestions to a patch, although the coding style was similar to that of a closely related function in the same library, but not perfectly matching the official coding style. I think we could be more lax about coding style, except if the coding style directly violates automatic coding style validation tools.
>
> Another infrequent contributor got patch style feedback about a small patch, suggesting to split it up into three patches. The official contributing guide says that small changes should be kept together in the same patch. The patch in question could be considered three bug fixes, so splitting it up might be appropriate, or it could be considered fixing three variations of the same bug, so keeping it together as one would be appropriate. I think we could be more lax about patch style, except if the patches are completely incomprehensible.
>

A lot of patch style can be fixed automatically through clang-format.

Please find below the Linux kernel documentation for its clang-format and usage.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/clang-format.html
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/.clang-format

Maybe we could add .clang-format file for DPDK.
I have been using the following clang-format configuration for DPDK[1]
May be for once, we need to fix the coding standard issue with the
existing codebase using clang-format.

[1]
"{ BasedOnStyle: LLVM, IndentWidth: 8, TabWidth: 8, UseTab: Always,
AllowShortIfStatementsOnASingleLine: false, IndentCaseLabels: false,
ColumnLimit: 80, AllowShortFunctionsOnASingleLine: false,
AlwaysBreakAfterReturnType: AllDefinitions, ColumnLimit: 80,
ConstructorInitializerAllOnOneLineOrOnePerLine: true,
ConstructorInitializerIndentWidth: 8, ContinuationIndentWidth: 8,
BreakBeforeBraces: Linux, AllowShortBlocksOnASingleLine: false,
AlignConsecutiveAssignments: false, AlignEscapedNewlines: Right,
AlignConsecutiveMacros : true, MaxEmptyLinesToKeep : 1,
Cpp11BracedListStyle : true, AlignTrailingComments : true,
ForEachMacros: ['STAILQ_FOREACH', 'rte_graph_foreach_node',
'TAILQ_FOREACH', 'RTE_ETH_FOREACH_DEV']}",