From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc: announce API change for rte_ether.h
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2015 08:33:35 -0800
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To: Panu Matilainen <pmatilai@redhat.com>
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On Fri, 11 Dec 2015 11:28:48 +0200
Panu Matilainen <pmatilai@redhat.com> wrote:

> On 12/11/2015 01:27 AM, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > Plan to change to <net/ethernet.h> version of struct ether_addr in
> > DPDK 2.3. The change in DPDK source is trivial but it will impact
> > source compatablilty therefore notification is necessary.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
> > ---
> >   doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst | 5 +++++
> >   1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst b/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst
> > index 1c7ab01..8ecb990 100644
> > --- a/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst
> > +++ b/doc/guides/rel_notes/deprecation.rst
> > @@ -19,3 +19,8 @@ Deprecation Notices
> >     and table action handlers will be updated:
> >     the pipeline parameter will be added, the packets mask parameter will be
> >     either removed (for input port action handler) or made input-only.
> > +
> > +* librte_ether: The structure ether_addr in DPDK will be replaced
> > +  by using the standard header file <net/ethernet.h>. The structure
> > +  size will be the same (no ABI impact), but the structure field name
> > +  will change from addr_bytes[] to ether_addr_octet[].
> >
> 
> I hope there is some other reason/benefit besides getting rid of a 
> three-line custom struct definition. It may be a trivial 
> s/addr_bytes/ether_addr_octet/ change but it touches a lot of places all 
> over the DPDK codebase alone, and for 3rd party developers such (at 
> least seemingly) gratuitous renames are really irritating.
> 
> 	- Panu -
> 

It allows dropping dependency on cmdline in several places in code (by using ether_ntoa instead).
The problem was a day 0 choice in DPDK to define their own struct's everywhere.