[PATCH v3 1/3] lib: introduce dispatcher library

[Naga Harish K, S V]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerin Jacob <jerinjacobk at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2023 3:02 PM
> To: Naga Harish K, S V <s.v.naga.harish.k at intel.com>
> Cc: mattias.ronnblom <mattias.ronnblom at ericsson.com>; dev at dpdk.org;
> Jerin Jacob <jerinj at marvell.com>; techboard at dpdk.org; Van Haaren, Harry
> <harry.van.haaren at intel.com>; hofors at lysator.liu.se; Nilsson, Peter
> <peter.j.nilsson at ericsson.com>; Heng Wang <heng.wang at ericsson.com>;
> Pavan Nikhilesh <pbhagavatula at marvell.com>; Gujjar, Abhinandan S
> <abhinandan.gujjar at intel.com>; Carrillo, Erik G <erik.g.carrillo at intel.com>;
> Shijith Thotton <sthotton at marvell.com>; Hemant Agrawal
> <hemant.agrawal at nxp.com>; Sachin Saxena <sachin.saxena at oss.nxp.com>;
> Liang Ma <liangma at liangbit.com>; Mccarthy, Peter
> <peter.mccarthy at intel.com>; Yan, Zhirun <zhirun.yan at intel.com>
> Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 1/3] lib: introduce dispatcher library
> 
> On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 5:26 AM Naga Harish K, S V
> <s.v.naga.harish.k at intel.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Mattias Rönnblom <mattias.ronnblom at ericsson.com>
> > > Sent: Monday, September 4, 2023 6:33 PM
> > > To: dev at dpdk.org
> > > Cc: Jerin Jacob <jerinj at marvell.com>; techboard at dpdk.org; Van
> > > Haaren, Harry <harry.van.haaren at intel.com>; hofors at lysator.liu.se;
> > > Nilsson, Peter <peter.j.nilsson at ericsson.com>; Heng Wang
> > > <heng.wang at ericsson.com>; Naga Harish K, S V
> > > <s.v.naga.harish.k at intel.com>; Pavan Nikhilesh
> > > <pbhagavatula at marvell.com>; Gujjar, Abhinandan S
> > > <abhinandan.gujjar at intel.com>; Carrillo, Erik G
> > > <Erik.G.Carrillo at intel.com>; Shijith Thotton <sthotton at marvell.com>;
> > > Hemant Agrawal <hemant.agrawal at nxp.com>; Sachin Saxena
> > > <sachin.saxena at oss.nxp.com>; Liang Ma <liangma at liangbit.com>;
> > > Mccarthy, Peter <Peter.Mccarthy at intel.com>; Yan, Zhirun
> > > <Zhirun.Yan at intel.com>; mattias.ronnblom
> > > <mattias.ronnblom at ericsson.com>
> > > Subject: [PATCH v3 1/3] lib: introduce dispatcher library
> > >
> > > The purpose of the dispatcher library is to help reduce coupling in
> > > an Eventdev-based DPDK application.
> > >
> > > In addition, the dispatcher also provides a convenient and flexible
> > > way for the application to use service cores for application-level processing.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Mattias Rönnblom <mattias.ronnblom at ericsson.com>
> > > Tested-by: Peter Nilsson <peter.j.nilsson at ericsson.com>
> > > Reviewed-by: Heng Wang <heng.wang at ericsson.com>
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > PATCH v3:
> > >  o To underline its optional character and since it does not provide
> > >    hardware abstraction, the event dispatcher is now a separate
> > >    library.
> > >  o Change name from rte_event_dispatcher -> rte_dispatcher, to make it
> > >    shorter and to avoid the rte_event_* namespace.
> > >
> >
> > Rte_dispatcher is basically dispatching events but it feels like the name does
> not convey that.
> > Also, it is like any other adapter service that can reside within the eventdev
> directory.
> >
> > I can see some discussion in previous threads related to the placement of the
> dispatcher library.
> >
> > It is an optional eventdev application service, not enforcing this
> programming model to the application.
> > The documentation may need to be updated and mention that this is
> optional.
> >
> > If any hardware comes up with the dispatcher feature, then this library may
> need to be moved inside eventdev library later.
> 
> I would like to follow YAGNI principle in eventdev library.

What is YAGNI principle? for understanding purposes.

> Even if a HW comes(I assume not), the interface should not look like that.
> None of the HW will be comparing a bunch of function pointers and call the
> callback.
> So interface will look different for HW enablement. We need to model the API
> based on HW for device libraries and SW libraries based on CPU modeling
> dynamics.
> 
> Also, There is no need to tie up this library/framework only event ]dev, other
> than using rte_event_dequeue()  to pull packet it has no eventdev significance.
> The library scope if just pull the packet from a source and compare with in N
> number of matches and call respective process callback.
> The dispatcher source can rte_ethdev_rx_burst or ring.

The current implementation of rte_dispatcher is event-dev centric.
All the data structures are defined around the eventdev.

The documentation also mentions it is for eventdev-based applications.
Maybe the documentation needs to have the info on supporting different sources (from ethdev, ring etc).