On Mon,  2 Feb 2026 12:36:52 +0100
Lukas Sismis [off-list ref] wrote:

This series extracts the testpmd flow CLI parser into a reusable library,
enabling external applications to parse rte_flow rules using testpmd syntax.

Motivation
----------
External applications like Suricata IDS [1] need to express hardware filtering
rules in a consistent, human-readable format. Rather than inventing custom
syntax, reusing testpmd's well-tested flow grammar provides immediate
compatibility with existing documentation and user knowledge.

Note: This library provides only one way to create rte_flow structures.
Applications can also construct rte_flow_attr, rte_flow_item[], and
rte_flow_action[] directly in C code.

Design
------
The library (librte_flow_parser) exposes the following APIs:
- rte_flow_parser_parse_attr_str(): Parse attributes only
- rte_flow_parser_parse_pattern_str(): Parse patterns only
- rte_flow_parser_parse_actions_str(): Parse actions only

Testpmd is updated to use the library, ensuring a single
maintained parser implementation.

Testing and Demo
-------
- Functional tests in dpdk-test
- Example application: examples/flow_parsing

I am working on being able to use null PMD to exercise rte_flow.
Will add another automated test to exercise flow parser in automated test.