On 29.06.12 at 12:03, Jean Guyader<jean.guyader@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 29 June 2012 09:33, Jan Beulich<JBeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 28.06.12 at 18:26, Jean Guyader<jean.guyader@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
+typedef struct v4v_ring_id
+{
+ struct v4v_addr addr;
+ domid_t partner;
+} V4V_PACKED v4v_ring_id_t;
+
This structure is really the one that cause trouble. domid_t is 16b
and v4v_addr_t is used
inside v4v_ring_t. I would like the structure to remind as close as we
can from the original version
as we already versions in the field. Having explicit padding will make
all the structures different
which will make much harder to write a driver that will support the
two versions of the API.
Oh, I see, "partner" would end up on a different offset if the
packed attribute was removed from v4v_addr_t. But that
could still be solved by making this type a union:
typedef union v4v_ring_id
{
struct v4v_addr addr;
struct {
uint32_t port;
domid_t domain;
domid_t partner;
} full;
} v4v_ring_id_t;
That would guarantee binary compatibility. And you could even
achieve source compatibility for gcc users by making the naming
of the second structure conditional upon __GNUC__ being
undefined (or adding a second instance of the same, just
unnamed structure within a respective #ifdef - that would make
it possible to write code that can be compiled by both gcc and
non-gcc, yet existing gcc-only code would need changing).
Also most all the consumer of those headers will have to rewrite the
structure anyway, for instance
the Linux kernel have it's own naming convention, macros definitions
which are different, etc..
Such can usually be done via scripts, so having a fully defined
public header is still worthwhile.