1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2 Copyright 2018 The DPDK contributors
4 ABI and API Deprecation
5 =======================
7 See the guidelines document for details of the :doc:`ABI policy
8 <../contributing/abi_policy>`. API and ABI deprecation notices are to be posted
14 * kvargs: The function ``rte_kvargs_process`` will get a new parameter
15 for returning key match count. It will ease handling of no-match case.
17 * eal: The function ``rte_eal_remote_launch`` will return new error codes
18 after read or write error on the pipe, instead of calling ``rte_panic``.
20 * eal: Making ``struct rte_intr_handle`` internal to avoid any ABI breakages
23 * rte_atomicNN_xxx: These APIs do not take memory order parameter. This does
24 not allow for writing optimized code for all the CPU architectures supported
25 in DPDK. DPDK has adopted the atomic operations from
26 https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/_005f_005fatomic-Builtins.html. These
27 operations must be used for patches that need to be merged in 20.08 onwards.
28 This change will not introduce any performance degradation.
30 * rte_smp_*mb: These APIs provide full barrier functionality. However, many
31 use cases do not require full barriers. To support such use cases, DPDK has
32 adopted atomic operations from
33 https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/_005f_005fatomic-Builtins.html. These
34 operations and a new wrapper ``rte_atomic_thread_fence`` instead of
35 ``__atomic_thread_fence`` must be used for patches that need to be merged in
36 20.08 onwards. This change will not introduce any performance degradation.
38 * mempool: Helper macro ``MEMPOOL_HEADER_SIZE()`` is deprecated and will
39 be removed in DPDK 22.11. The replacement macro
40 ``RTE_MEMPOOL_HEADER_SIZE()`` is internal only.
42 * mempool: Macro to register mempool driver ``MEMPOOL_REGISTER_OPS()`` is
43 deprecated and will be removed in DPDK 22.11. Use replacement macro
44 ``RTE_MEMPOOL_REGISTER_OPS()``.
46 * mempool: The mempool API macros ``MEMPOOL_PG_*`` are deprecated and
47 will be removed in DPDK 22.11.
49 * pci: To reduce unnecessary ABIs exposed by DPDK bus driver, "rte_bus_pci.h"
50 will be made internal in 21.11 and macros/data structures/functions defined
51 in the header will not be considered as ABI anymore. This change is inspired
52 by the RFC https://patchwork.dpdk.org/project/dpdk/list/?series=17176.
54 * lib: will fix extending some enum/define breaking the ABI. There are multiple
55 samples in DPDK that enum/define terminated with a ``.*MAX.*`` value which is
56 used by iterators, and arrays holding these values are sized with this
57 ``.*MAX.*`` value. So extending this enum/define increases the ``.*MAX.*``
58 value which increases the size of the array and depending on how/where the
59 array is used this may break the ABI.
60 ``RTE_ETH_FLOW_MAX`` is one sample of the mentioned case, adding a new flow
61 type will break the ABI because of ``flex_mask[RTE_ETH_FLOW_MAX]`` array
62 usage in following public struct hierarchy:
63 ``rte_eth_fdir_flex_conf -> rte_eth_fdir_conf -> rte_eth_conf (in the middle)``.
64 Need to identify this kind of usages and fix in 20.11, otherwise this blocks
65 us extending existing enum/define.
66 One solution can be using a fixed size array instead of ``.*MAX.*`` value.
68 * ethdev: The flow director API, including ``rte_eth_conf.fdir_conf`` field,
69 and the related structures (``rte_fdir_*`` and ``rte_eth_fdir_*``),
70 will be removed in DPDK 20.11.
72 * ethdev: New offload flags ``RTE_ETH_RX_OFFLOAD_FLOW_MARK`` will be added in 19.11.
73 This will allow application to enable or disable PMDs from updating
74 ``rte_mbuf::hash::fdir``.
75 This scheme will allow PMDs to avoid writes to ``rte_mbuf`` fields on Rx and
76 thereby improve Rx performance if application wishes do so.
77 In 19.11 PMDs will still update the field even when the offload is not
80 * ethdev: Announce moving from dedicated modify function for each field,
81 to using the general ``rte_flow_modify_field`` action.
83 * ethdev: The flow API matching pattern structures, ``struct rte_flow_item_*``,
84 should start with relevant protocol header.
85 Some matching pattern structures implements this by duplicating protocol header
86 fields in the struct. To clarify the intention and to be sure protocol header
87 is intact, will replace those fields with relevant protocol header struct.
88 In v21.02 both individual protocol header fields and the protocol header struct
89 will be added as union, target is switch usage to the protocol header by time.
90 In v21.11 LTS, protocol header fields will be cleaned and only protocol header
93 * ethdev: Add new Rx queue offload flag ``RTE_ETH_RX_OFFLOAD_SHARED_RXQ`` and
94 ``shared_group`` field to ``struct rte_eth_rxconf``.
96 * ethdev: Queue specific stats fields will be removed from ``struct rte_eth_stats``.
97 Mentioned fields are: ``q_ipackets``, ``q_opackets``, ``q_ibytes``, ``q_obytes``,
99 Instead queue stats will be received via xstats API. Current method support
100 will be limited to maximum 256 queues.
101 Also compile time flag ``RTE_ETHDEV_QUEUE_STAT_CNTRS`` will be removed.
103 * ethdev: Items and actions ``PF``, ``VF``, ``PHY_PORT``, ``PORT_ID`` are
104 deprecated as hard-to-use / ambiguous and will be removed in DPDK 22.11.
106 * ethdev: The use of attributes ``ingress`` / ``egress`` in "transfer" flows
107 is deprecated as ambiguous with respect to the embedded switch. The use of
108 these attributes will become invalid starting from DPDK 22.11.
110 * vhost: ``rte_vdpa_register_device``, ``rte_vdpa_unregister_device``,
111 ``rte_vhost_host_notifier_ctrl`` and ``rte_vdpa_relay_vring_used`` vDPA
112 driver interface will be marked as internal in DPDK v21.11.
114 * vhost: rename ``struct vhost_device_ops`` to ``struct rte_vhost_device_ops``
117 * vhost: The experimental tags of ``rte_vhost_driver_get_protocol_features``,
118 ``rte_vhost_driver_get_queue_num``, ``rte_vhost_crypto_create``,
119 ``rte_vhost_crypto_free``, ``rte_vhost_crypto_fetch_requests``,
120 ``rte_vhost_crypto_finalize_requests``, ``rte_vhost_crypto_set_zero_copy``,
121 ``rte_vhost_va_from_guest_pa``, ``rte_vhost_extern_callback_register``,
122 and ``rte_vhost_driver_set_protocol_features`` functions will be removed
123 and the API functions will be made stable in DPDK 21.11.
125 * cryptodev: Hide structures ``rte_cryptodev_sym_session`` and
126 ``rte_cryptodev_asym_session`` to remove unnecessary indirection between
127 session and the private data of session. An opaque pointer can be exposed
128 directly to application which can be attached to the ``rte_crypto_op``.
130 * security: Hide structure ``rte_security_session`` and expose an opaque
131 pointer for the private data to the application which can be attached
132 to the packet while enqueuing.
134 * eventdev: The file ``rte_eventdev_pmd.h`` will be renamed to ``eventdev_driver.h``
135 to make the driver interface as internal and the structures ``rte_eventdev_data``,
136 ``rte_eventdev`` and ``rte_eventdevs`` will be moved to a new file named
137 ``rte_eventdev_core.h`` in DPDK 21.11.
138 The ``rte_`` prefix for internal structures and functions will be removed across the
140 The experimental eventdev trace APIs and ``rte_event_vector_pool_create``,
141 ``rte_event_eth_rx_adapter_vector_limits_get`` will be promoted to stable.
142 An 8-byte reserved field will be added to the structure ``rte_event_timer`` to
143 support future extensions.
145 * eventdev: The structure ``rte_event_eth_rx_adapter_queue_conf`` will be
146 extended to include ``rte_event_eth_rx_adapter_event_vector_config`` elements
147 and the function ``rte_event_eth_rx_adapter_queue_event_vector_config`` will
148 be removed in DPDK 21.11.
150 An application can enable event vectorization by passing the desired vector
151 values to the function ``rte_event_eth_rx_adapter_queue_add`` using
152 the structure ``rte_event_eth_rx_adapter_queue_add``.
154 * eventdev: Reserved bytes of ``rte_event_crypto_request`` is a space holder
155 for ``response_info``. Both should be decoupled for better clarity in
157 New space for ``response_info`` can be made by changing
158 ``rte_event_crypto_metadata`` type to structure from union.
160 * metrics: The function ``rte_metrics_init`` will have a non-void return
161 in order to notify errors instead of calling ``rte_exit``.
163 * raw/ioat: The ``ioat`` rawdev driver has been deprecated, since it's
164 functionality is provided through the new ``dmadev`` infrastructure.
165 To continue to use hardware previously supported by the ``ioat`` rawdev driver,
166 applications should be updated to use the ``dmadev`` library instead,
167 with the underlying HW-functionality being provided by the ``ioat`` or