[dpdk-users] A question about the function __mempool_get_bulk() of dpdk-16.04

[Shreyansh Jain]

Hi,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: users [mailto:users-bounces at dpdk.org] On Behalf Of Wu, Xiaoban
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2016 2:22 AM
> To: users at dpdk.org
> Subject: [dpdk-users] A question about the function __mempool_get_bulk() of
> dpdk-16.04
> 
> Dear DPDK Users,
> 
> 
> I have been reading the pktgen-3.0.02 source codes with dpdk-16.04.
> 
> 
> In the pktgen.c, function pktgen_send_pkts(), line 1098, it calls function
> wr_pktmbuf_alloc_bulk_noreset().  Then it calls the function
> rte_mempool_get_bulk() which calls the function __mempool_get_bulk().
> 
> 
> Since in the function rte_pktmbuf_pool_create(), the "flags" is set to zero
> in default, this leads to that when calling __mempool_get_bulk(), the input
> parameter"is_mc==1". Hence the function __mempool_get_bulk() will execute the
> line 961-992 except that when "ret" is less that 0.

I too observed this issue a few days back. 
[I ended up changing DPDK code to get around it - some use-case I don't recall now].

> 
> 
> My question is why at line 992, this has to return 0? In the line 941, the
> comment says that  ">=0: Success; number of objects supplied." I am confused
> by this comment, since in line 985-990, we can see that the input parameter
> "obj_table" is supplied by new values and the number of the new values is
> "n". Does this means that we need to "return n;" instead of "return 0;"?

Probably, what is happening is that all calls to __mempool_get_bulk in DPDK code base are not worrying about a return value stating number of objects/buffers handled. They just require a positive number and are satisfied with '0'.
Reading through the API itself, I was not sure if it indeed should return the count or not. Given the pktgen use-case, 'count' looks more probable. And even if modified, it wouldn't break any call flow - AFAIK.

Probably guys on devel@ can help us.

> 
> 
> Am I missing something here? Thank you so much for your help.
> 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Xiaoban

-
Shreyansh