[dpdk-dev] [RFC PATCH] replace DPDK config and build system

[Bruce Richardson]

Hi all,

following on from the pressing need to add support in DPDK for detecting
and managing external dependencies, I undertook to see what options we had.
However, unrelated to this, over time, I have become increasingly
frustrated by the complexity of the DPDK configuration and build system. As
such, I feel that looking at some of the newer build tools that are out
there might give us the additional functionality we want, along with other
benefits. As such, I undertook a prototype using "meson"[1] for
configuration, which uses "ninja" as a backend for doing the actual build.

With these tools we get the following benefits (not a complete list):
* support for detecting dependencies on the system
* support for detecting compiler features, including functions, defines
* improved maintainability through a high-level language, which gives
  decent error messages including line numbers (!!)
* co-existence with the existing makefile system without making any changes
  to it
* faster builds using ninja - on my many-core system, the builds seem
  significantly faster than with our existing system. Especially in the
  nothing-has-changed case, builds with my prototype return instantly,
  compared to taking a few seconds to recursively check each directory with
  the current build system
* the ability to switch to using a standard "ninja" + "ninja install" setup
* the chance to rework our existing build-config files, and hopefully
  pretty much remove them.
* pkg-config support.
* we get to move away from our bespoke build system
* dependencies in each lib can be moved back to being tracked in the libs
  files themselves, not up a level


Of course, it's not a panacea, but having spent hours on the prototype thus
far, I find working with meson and ninja far more user-friendly than
working on our makefiles, and again the build speed is a really nice
improvment too.

The prototype is incomplete, but it does build a reasonable number of our
libraries, some unit tests, the i40e PMD and the testpmd binary, and I have
successfully passed traffic using testpmd from the build. Some things are
not fully correct, e.g. static builds aren't working right now, as I haven't
correctly done all the dependency tracking, I think, and the cpu flag
detection has issues. It also has only been tried on x86_64 linux, on a
couple of systems, so YMMV. However, I feel it's a reasonable enough start
point to show what we might be able to achieve.

Please take the prototype and test it out. I think it's a better
alternative to trying to bolt on additional functionality to our existing
config and build system.

[1] http://mesonbuild.com/

Bruce Richardson (1):
  build for DPDK with meson and ninja

 .gitignore                                         |  2 +
 app/meson.build                                    |  1 +
 app/test-pmd/meson.build                           | 20 +++++++
 config/meson.build                                 |  5 ++
 config/rte_config.h                                | 20 +++++++
 drivers/mempool/meson.build                        |  2 +
 drivers/mempool/ring/meson.build                   |  9 +++
 drivers/mempool/stack/meson.build                  |  9 +++
 drivers/meson.build                                |  2 +
 drivers/net/i40e/meson.build                       | 61 +++++++++++++++++++
 drivers/net/meson.build                            |  1 +
 lib/librte_acl/meson.build                         | 44 ++++++++++++++
 lib/librte_cmdline/meson.build                     | 30 ++++++++++
 lib/librte_compat/meson.build                      |  4 ++
 lib/librte_eal/common/arch/x86/meson.build         |  1 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/arch/x86_64                  |  1 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_cpuflags.c        |  1 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/arch/x86/meson.build | 16 +++++
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/arch/x86_64          |  1 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/meson.build          | 36 +++++++++++
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_common.h         |  1 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_eal.h            |  2 +-
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/eal.c                  |  6 +-
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/eal_pci_uio.c          |  9 +--
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/meson.build            | 57 ++++++++++++++++++
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/meson.build                |  1 +
 lib/librte_eal/meson.build                         | 10 ++++
 lib/librte_ether/meson.build                       | 16 +++++
 lib/librte_hash/meson.build                        | 21 +++++++
 lib/librte_kvargs/meson.build                      | 10 ++++
 lib/librte_mbuf/meson.build                        | 10 ++++
 lib/librte_mbuf/rte_mbuf.h                         |  1 +
 lib/librte_mempool/meson.build                     | 10 ++++
 lib/librte_metrics/meson.build                     | 10 ++++
 lib/librte_net/meson.build                         | 19 ++++++
 lib/librte_ring/meson.build                        | 10 ++++
 lib/meson.build                                    | 12 ++++
 meson.build                                        | 70 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 meson_options.txt                                  |  2 +
 test/meson.build                                   |  1 +
 test/test/meson.build                              | 23 +++++++
 test/test/test.c                                   | 17 +++---
 42 files changed, 568 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 app/meson.build
 create mode 100644 app/test-pmd/meson.build
 create mode 100644 config/meson.build
 create mode 100644 config/rte_config.h
 create mode 100644 drivers/mempool/meson.build
 create mode 100644 drivers/mempool/ring/meson.build
 create mode 100644 drivers/mempool/stack/meson.build
 create mode 100644 drivers/meson.build
 create mode 100644 drivers/net/i40e/meson.build
 create mode 100644 drivers/net/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_acl/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_cmdline/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_compat/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_eal/common/arch/x86/meson.build
 create mode 120000 lib/librte_eal/common/arch/x86_64
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_eal/common/include/arch/x86/meson.build
 create mode 120000 lib/librte_eal/common/include/arch/x86_64
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_eal/common/include/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_eal/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_ether/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_hash/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_kvargs/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_mbuf/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_mempool/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_metrics/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_net/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_ring/meson.build
 create mode 100644 lib/meson.build
 create mode 100644 meson.build
 create mode 100644 meson_options.txt
 create mode 100644 test/meson.build
 create mode 100644 test/test/meson.build

-- 
2.9.4