Re: [PATCH v6 12/17] pci: add a helper for device name
From: Jan Viktorin <hidden>
Date: 2016-07-15 11:32:56
On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:56:38 +0200 Thomas Monjalon [off-list ref] wrote:
2016-07-15 15:09, Shreyansh jain:quoted
On Thursday 14 July 2016 10:25 PM, Jan Viktorin wrote:quoted
What is meant by "resources" here?This has historic context (from earlier version of this patch). But I could relate the word 'resources' to EAL representation of devices - whether PCI or Crypto. Or, Resource == Device.We need to define a precise wording, especially for the words - interface - resource - device - driver - module Following are my thoughts: An interface is a view of a resource through an API (e.g. an ethdev port). A resource is a well identified hardware (e.g. a PCI device id). A device is a hardware function (e.g. a networking port). Note that some PCI NICs have only one PCI device id for several ports (Chelsio and Mellanox cases). That's why we need to distinguish device and resource. A driver is the code handling a device. I have read the word module in some patch proposals but I don't really know what it refers to. Is it a group of drivers in the same file/directory?
Well, yes, initially there was proposed a kind of module. However, after David as sent the patchset prepare for rte_device/driver, you can see that there is no need for such object (probably). A module might be helpful when thinking about the metadata (as done by Neil Horman). But as far as I know there was no need for this... So a module has no data abstraction now and I am not going to make any. Jan