On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 1:30 AM Markus Armbruster <arm...@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Leonardo Bras Soares Passos <leob...@redhat.com> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> >> The general argument for having QAPI schema 'if' mirror the C
> >> implementation's #if is introspection. Let me explain why that matters.
> >>
> >> Consider a management application that supports a range of QEMU
> >> versions, say 5.0 to 6.2. Say it wants to use an QMP command that is
> >> new in QEMU 6.2. The sane way to do that is to probe for the command
> >> with query-qmp-schema. Same for command arguments, and anything else
> >> QMP.
> >>
> >> If you doubt "sane", check out Part II of "QEMU interface introspection:
> >> From hacks to solutions"[*].
> >>
> >> The same technique works when a QMP command / argument / whatever is
> >> compile-time conditional ('if' in the schema). The code the management
> >> application needs anyway to deal with older QEMU now also deals with
> >> "compiled out". Nice.
> >>
> >> Of course, a command or argument present in QEMU can still fail, and the
> >> management application still needs to handle failure. Distinguishing
> >> different failure modes can be bothersome and/or fragile.
> >>
> >> By making the QAPI schema conditional mirror the C conditional, you
> >> squash the failure mode "this version of QEMU supports it, but this
> >> build of QEMU does not" into "this version of QEMU does not support
> >> it". Makes sense, doesn't it?
> >>
> >> A minor additional advantage is less generated code.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> [*]
> >> http://events17.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/armbru-qemu-introspection.pdf
> >>
> >
> > This was very informative, thanks!
> > I now understand the rationale about this choice.
> >
> > TBH I am not very used to this syntax.
> > I did a take a peek at some other json files, and ended adding this
> > lines in code, which compiled just fine:
> >
> > for : enum MigrationParameter
> > {'name': 'multifd-zerocopy', 'if' : 'CONFIG_LINUX'},
> >
> > for : struct MigrateSetParameters and struct MigrationParameters:
> > '*multifd-zerocopy': { 'type': 'bool', 'if': 'CONFIG_LINUX' },
> >
> > Is that enough? Is there any other necessary change?
>
> Looks good to me.
>
> The QAPI schema language is documented in docs/devel/qapi-code-gen.rst.
Thanks for reviewing and for pointing this docs!
>
> If you're curious, you can diff code generated into qapi/ before and
> after adding the 'if'.
Good idea!
>
> > Thanks for reviewing and for helping out with this!
>
> My pleasure!
>
:)
Best regards,
Leo
