[dpdk-dev] [RFC PATCH 00/14] Build file update proposals

[Luca Boccassi]

On Thu, 2021-04-01 at 15:27 +0300, Andrew Rybchenko wrote:
> On 4/1/21 2:49 PM, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> > This RFC contains 5 changes/updates to the DPDK build and build files. These
> > updates all assume that the minimum version for DPDK has increased to at least
> > meson 0.49 as proposed in [1].
> > 
> > The changes in this set are:
> > 1. Use "continue" keyword, new in 0.49 to shorten and reduce indentation levels
> >    in the foreach loops when building library or driver components.
> > 2. For libraries, drop support for header-only libraries, which was added just
> >    for the "compat" lib which had a single header, and is now part of EAL. This
> >    similarly reduces indentation levels and makes the code easier to follow
> > 3. Since the larger blocks of meson code in our repo is seeing massive
> >    whitespace changes, take the opportunity to switch our indentation style for
> >    meson files from that of C-files using tabs, to Meson/Python style using
> >    spaces. [More below on this for discussion]
> > 4. Remove the "librte_" prefix from all our library directories. While as useful
> >    cleanup, the main driver for this was that it simplifies the matching for #5
> >    below.
> > 5. Add a "disable_libs" build option to allow the user to optionally not build
> >    certain components. Include in this an explicit list of libraries which are
> >    "known safe" to disable in the build. For now this is a short list of three
> >    libs, all of which are safe because they are not buildable on FreeBSD. More
> >    work is needed to expand this list in future.
> > 
> > Of these changes, I expect #3 to be most controversial. The initial
> > implementation of meson build for DPDK should have originally been done using
> > the correct meson style using spaces[2], but sadly it was not done that way. If
> > we are to ever change, I believe it should be now while other rework such as
> > this is being done. Here are the arguments for/against, as I see them.
> > 
> > Reasons to change:
> > * Align with official meson style, used on other projects
> > * Reduce indentation levels in code. NOTE: While not normally a consideration in
> >   programming, this is a possible issue with meson compared to C or Python,
> >   because we cannot create separate functions to move inner loops to lower
> >   indentation levels.
> > * It's probably now or never.
> 
> +1 and I think it is better to do it now, not never

+1, with the addendum that we should add an ignore-rev file so that git
blame keeps working (needs to be done after merge, for the commit
hash):

https://www.moxio.com/blog/43/ignoring-bulk-change-commits-with-git-blame

-- 
Kind regards,
Luca Boccassi