ABI and API Deprecation
=======================

See the :doc:`guidelines document for details of the ABI policy </contributing/versioning>`.
API and ABI deprecation notices are to be posted here.


Deprecation Notices
-------------------

* The EAL function pci_config_space_set is deprecated in release 16.04
  and will be removed from 16.07.
  Macros CONFIG_RTE_PCI_CONFIG, CONFIG_RTE_PCI_EXTENDED_TAG and
  CONFIG_RTE_PCI_MAX_READ_REQUEST_SIZE will be removed.
  The /sys entries extended_tag and max_read_request_size created by igb_uio
  will be removed.

* ABI changes are planned for struct rte_pci_id, i.e., add new field ``class``.
  This new added ``class`` field can be used to probe pci device by class
  related info. This change should impact size of struct rte_pci_id and struct
  rte_pci_device. The release 16.04 does not contain these ABI changes, but
  release 16.07 will.

* The following fields have been deprecated in rte_eth_stats:
  ibadcrc, ibadlen, imcasts, fdirmatch, fdirmiss,
  tx_pause_xon, rx_pause_xon, tx_pause_xoff, rx_pause_xoff

* The xstats API and rte_eth_xstats struct will be changed to allow retrieval
  of values without any string copies or parsing.
  No backwards compatibility is planned, as it would require code duplication
  in every PMD that supports xstats.

* ABI changes are planned for adding four new flow types. This impacts
  RTE_ETH_FLOW_MAX. The release 2.2 does not contain these ABI changes,
  but release 2.3 will. [postponed]

* ABI change is planned for the rte_mempool structure to allow mempool
  cache support to be dynamic depending on the mempool being created
  needing cache support. Saves about 1.5M of memory per rte_mempool structure
  by removing the per lcore cache memory. Change will occur in DPDK 16.07
  release and will skip the define RTE_NEXT_ABI in DPDK 16.04 release. The
  code affected is app/test/test_mempool.c and librte_mempool/rte_mempool.[ch].
  The rte_mempool.local_cache will be converted from an array to a pointer to
  allow for dynamic allocation of the per lcore cache memory.

* The rte_mempool struct will be changed in 16.07 to facilitate the new
  external mempool manager functionality.
  The ring element will be replaced with a more generic 'pool' opaque pointer
  to allow new mempool handlers to use their own user-defined mempool
  layout. Also newly added to rte_mempool is a handler index.
  The existing API will be backward compatible, but there will be new API
  functions added to facilitate the creation of mempools using an external
  handler. The 16.07 release will contain these changes.

* The rte_mempool allocation will be changed in 16.07:
  allocation of large mempool in several virtual memory chunks, new API
  to populate a mempool, new API to free a mempool, allocation in
  anonymous mapping, drop of specific dom0 code. These changes will
  induce a modification of the rte_mempool structure, plus a
  modification of the API of rte_mempool_obj_iter(), implying a breakage
  of the ABI.

* ABI changes are planned for struct rte_port_source_params in order to
  support PCAP file reading feature. The release 16.04 contains this ABI
  change wrapped by RTE_NEXT_ABI macro. Release 16.07 will contain this
  change, and no backwards compatibility is planned.