Re: [PATCH] char: rename CharBackend->CharFrontend

[Marc-André Lureau <marcandre.lureau@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

On Tue, Oct 21, 2025 at 6:23 PM Philippe Mathieu-Daudé
<philmd@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 21/10/25 15:58, Marc-André Lureau wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 21, 2025 at 5:52 PM Dr. David Alan Gilbert <dave@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> * Peter Maydell (peter.maydell@xxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> >>> Marc-André Lureau <marcandre.lureau@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>> The actual backend is "Chardev", CharBackend is the frontend side of it,
> >>>> let's rename it for readability.
> >>>
> >>> I always thought the "frontend" was the device the guest
> >>> saw (the 16650 UART or whatever). invocation.html has bits
> >>> talking about "virtio hvc console frontend device" which
> >>> seem like they also use that terminology.
> >>>
> >>> If we want to clean up the naming it might be helpful to have
> >>> a comment somewhere documenting the different components and
> >>> what names we give them and how they fit together (or even
> >>> better, something in docs/devel/...)
> >>
> >> Or something more descriptive like 'CharGuestSide'
> >
> > If we are talking about the Chardev frontend or user, that's too
> > restrictive. We have generic stream handling code (think
> > mux/hub/tests/client/server etc) that do not fit that usage naming.
>
> Isn't it
>
> - backend -> host adapter
> - frontend -> implementation used by guest
>

Sort of, but I think it's too restrictive to name them after "host"
and "guest", as they also have different purposes than strictly VM
components/side usage.

I believe talking about backend and frontend is usually the preferred
convention.


-- 
Marc-André Lureau