[ofw] Porting OFA stack to WDK

[Stan C. Smith]

Fab Tillier wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org
> [mailto:ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Sean Hefty 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 9:09 AM
> To: Fab Tillier; 'Leonid Keller'; ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
> Cc: Alex Naslednikov
> Subject: RE: [ofw] Porting OFA stack to WDK
>> 
>> Is keeping the userspace interfaces the same, but changing the
>> kernel interfaces to remove __ptr64 a usable solution?
> 
> The ib_al.h and ib_types.h files which contain structures and
> function declarations with __ptr64 are shared between user and kernel
> mode.  Keeping user-mode interfaces unchanged while changing the
> kernel mode interface would require branching these.  However, this
> wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, as there are things in those
> headers that are kernel-only and this would be an opportunity to
> clean some of that up.      
> 
> There's also a lot of shared code between user and kernel mode, so
> changing the APIs would require branching the implementation of the
> APIs too.  
> 
> I guess it comes down to either changing the interfaces and requiring
> apps to recompile, or branching user- from kernel-mode IBAL so that
> they can evolve independently.  The easiest is to require a
> recompile, though determining the impact of this is likely going to
> be hard.  Longer term, branching might provide welcome flexibility in
> development.

I'd vote we do the 'right' thing, for both short and long term....  :-)

That said, accomplish both (short & long term) goals.

The earlier in the release chain of WinOF we push the application recompile,
the easier (less impact) it will be.

The assumption being, once the __ptr64 is removed (applications recompiled),
then the longer term goal of splitting user-kernel header files will not
force an application recompile?

Does splitting user-kernel header files makes sense in light of WinVerbs?

Stan.
     
> 
> -Fab
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