[PATCH v22 00/27] remove use of VLAs for Windows

[Konstantin Ananyev]

Hi David,

> > As per guidance technical board meeting 2024/04/17. This series
> > removes the use of VLAs from code built for Windows for all 3
> > toolchains. If there are additional opportunities to convert VLAs
> > to regular C arrays please provide the details for incorporation
> > into the series.
> >
> > MSVC does not support VLAs, replace VLAs with standard C arrays
> > or alloca(). alloca() is available for all toolchain/platform
> > combinations officially supported by DPDK.
> 
> - I have one concern wrt patch 7.
> This changes the API/ABI of the RCU library.
> ABI can't be broken in the 25.03 release.
> 
> Since MSVC builds do not include RCU yet, I skipped this change and
> adjusted this libray meson.build.
> 
> Konstantin, do you think patch 7 could be rewritten to make use of
> alloca() and avoid an API change?
> https://patchwork.dpdk.org/project/dpdk/patch/1738805610-17507-8-git-send-email-andremue@linux.microsoft.com/

I am not big fan of alloca() approach, but yes it is surely possible.
BTW, why it is considered ad API/ABI change?
Because we introduce extra limit on max allowable size?
If that would help somehow, we can make it even bigger: 1K or so. 

> 
> - There is also some VLA in examples/l2fwd-cat, so I had to adjust
> this example meson.build accordingly.
> 
> Series applied, thanks André.
> 
> 
> --
> David Marchand
>