Hi all It may be convenient that DPDK drivers can work in several modes. Allowing driver option changes by the user can make the program more efficient. For Example: If user knows that all its Tx packets are 1 segment packets it can change the PMD mode to work with different tx_burst function which is more efficient for 1 segment scenario, As soon as multi segments packet are created, the user can change the mode back in run time.
Now let's discuss how to implement driver options. I suggest new bus operation to set the driver options. Each bus will expose new operation in rte_bus structure to set driver option by driver name: int set_driver_option(const char* driver_name, const char* optargs) Each bus will expose operation in rte_bus structure to set itself options: int set_option(char* optargs) Each PMD will expose operation to create option in its driver structure: int set_option(char* optargs) The EAL will expose API to set driver options by the user: int eal_set_driver_option(const char* bus_name, const char* driver_name, const char* optargs) int eal_set_bus_option(const char* bus_name, const char* optargs) optargs format will be "key1=value1,key2=value2,key3=value3..." and should be validated by EAL. Add new EAL command line parameter to set the start options per driver: "-driver-options bus_name=<driver bus name>,[name=<driver name>,]key1=value1[,key2=value2,key3=value3...]". Thoughts?
