[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v16 1/3] build: disable/enable drivers in Arm builds

[Juraj Linkeš]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson at intel.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 9, 2021 11:57 AM
> To: Juraj Linkeš <juraj.linkes at pantheon.tech>
> Cc: Ruifeng.Wang at arm.com; Honnappa.Nagarahalli at arm.com;
> Phil.Yang at arm.com; vcchunga at amazon.com; Dharmik.Thakkar at arm.com;
> jerinjacobk at gmail.com; hemant.agrawal at nxp.com;
> ajit.khaparde at broadcom.com; ferruh.yigit at intel.com; aboyer at pensando.io;
> lironh at marvell.com; dev at dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: [PATCH v16 1/3] build: disable/enable drivers in Arm builds
> 
> On Tue, Mar 09, 2021 at 08:58:39AM +0000, Juraj Linkeš wrote:
> > Honnappa, Thomas, Bruce, Jerin, you've comments in the past. Do you have
> any further input?
> >
> > I think we just need to agree on the allowlist/blocklist mechanism. The current
> commit allows specifying either an allowlist or a blocklist, but not both.
> However, it would possible to implement specifying both - first we'll allow
> what's in allowlist and then we'll remove from that set what's in blocklist.
> Thoughts?
> >
> 
> If we have both, I think limiting to only one is by far the sanest option.
> I'm not fully convinced by the need to have both, since the blocklist allows
> wildcarding and exception cases. For example "net/[!i]*" will blocklist all net
> drivers except those starting with an "i". Admittedly, for usability purposes
> having an allowlist might work better.
> 

If we only want to build a handful of drivers then the list could be very long (which was the original reason behind having an allowlist), such as here:
https://gerrit.fd.io/r/gitweb?p=vpp.git;a=blob;f=build/external/packages/dpdk.mk;h=c35ac84c27b19411a0cfdf9a3524fdf36024762c;hb=HEAD

An allowlist could also help with maintenance - users won't need to add new drivers to their blocklists (if that's what users need, like in the case of VPP).

> One final thought, if we add a driver allowlist for cross files, should we also add
> one as a top-level meson option also for consistency?
> 

This definitely makese sense. I was thinking about this and wasn't sure whether I should put it into this commit or a separate one. The commit evolved a bit and now that it's just an implementation of an allow/blocklist it makes sense to include a meson option in it I think - I'll put it into the next version.

> /Bruce