Re: [PATCH 00/13] new plugin argument passing scheme

["Alex Bennée" <alex.bennee@linaro.org>]

Mahmoud Mandour <ma.mandourr@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> This series removes passing arguments to plugins through "arg=" since
> it's redundant and reduces readability especially when the argument
> itself is composed of a name and a value.

When you re-roll a series it's useful to add a version tag. You can use
--subject-prefix in your git format-patch command to do this.

I'll have a look at this on Monday.

>
> Also, passing arguments through "arg=" still works but is marked as
> deprecated and will produce a deprecation warning.
>
> Right now, the code for parsing the argument before passing it to the
> plugin is unfortunately not so clean but that's mainly because "arg=" is
> still supported.
>
> At first, considering boolean parameters, those were not special to
> plugins and QEMU did not complain about passing them in the form
> "arg=bool_arg" even though that's considered a short-form boolean, which
> is deprecated. As "arg" is removed, a deprecation warning is issued.
>
> This is mitigated by making plugins aware of boolean arguments and
> parses them through a newly exposed API, namely the `qapi_bool_parse`
> function through a plugin API function. Now plugins expect boolean
> parameters to be passed in the form that other parts of QEMU expect,
> i.e. "bool_arg=[on|true|yes|off|false|no]".
>
> Since we're still supporting "arg=arg_name", there are some assumptions
> that I made that I think are suitable:
>
>     1. "arg=arg_name" will be passed to the plugin as "arg_name=on".
>     2. "arg=on" and "arg" will not be assumed to be the old way of
>         passing args. Instead, it will assume that the argument name is
>         "arg" and it's a boolean parameter. (will be passed to plugin
>         as "arg=on")
>
> The docs are updated accordingly and a deprecation notice is put in the
> deprecated.rst file.
>
> v1 -> v2:
>     1. Added patches that handle test plugins as well
>     2. Handled unsupported arguements in howvec
>
> Based-on: <20210714172151.8494-1-ma.mandourr@gmail.com>
>
> However, the dependency is so light and it should only be in the patch
>
>     docs/tcg-plugins: new passing parameters scheme for cache docs
>
> where it depends on
>
>     docs/devel/tcg-plugins: added cores arg to cache plugin
>
> in the aforementioned series (conflict lies in the argument "cores=N" only.)
>
> Mahmoud Mandour (13):
>   plugins: allow plugin arguments to be passed directly
>   plugins/api: added a boolean parsing plugin api
>   plugins/hotpages: introduce sortby arg and parsed bool args correctly
>   plugins/hotblocks: Added correct boolean argument parsing
>   plugins/lockstep: make socket path not positional & parse bool arg
>   plugins/hwprofile: adapt to the new plugin arguments scheme
>   plugins/howvec: Adapting to the new argument passing scheme.
>   docs/tcg-plugins: new passing parameters scheme for cache docs
>   tests/plugins/bb: adapt to the new arg passing scheme
>   tests/plugins/insn: made arg inline not positional and parse it as
>     bool
>   tests/plugins/mem: introduce "track" arg and make args not positional
>   tests/plugins/syscalls: adhere to new arg-passing scheme
>   docs/deprecated: deprecate passing plugin args through `arg=`
>
>  contrib/plugins/hotblocks.c | 14 +++++++++--
>  contrib/plugins/hotpages.c  | 30 +++++++++++++++--------
>  contrib/plugins/howvec.c    | 27 ++++++++++++++-------
>  contrib/plugins/hwprofile.c | 39 ++++++++++++++++++++----------
>  contrib/plugins/lockstep.c  | 31 +++++++++++++++++-------
>  docs/devel/tcg-plugins.rst  | 38 +++++++++++++++---------------
>  docs/system/deprecated.rst  |  6 +++++
>  include/qemu/qemu-plugin.h  | 13 ++++++++++
>  linux-user/main.c           |  2 +-
>  plugins/api.c               |  5 ++++
>  plugins/loader.c            | 24 +++++++++++++++----
>  qemu-options.hx             |  9 ++++---
>  tests/plugin/bb.c           | 15 ++++++++----
>  tests/plugin/insn.c         | 14 +++++++++--
>  tests/plugin/mem.c          | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++--------------
>  tests/plugin/syscall.c      | 23 ++++++++++++------
>  16 files changed, 236 insertions(+), 101 deletions(-)


-- 
Alex Bennée