Re: [Qemu-devel] IDs in QOM

[Paolo Bonzini]

Il 07/10/2014 14:16, Markus Armbruster ha scritto:
>> > Possibly, except this would propagate all the way through the APIs.  For
>> > example, right now [*] is added automatically to MemoryRegion
>> > properties, but this can change in the future since many MemoryRegions
>> > do not need array-like names.  Then you would have two sets of
>> > MemoryRegion creation APIs, one that array-ifies names and one that 
>> > doesn't.
> Why couldn't you have a separate name generator there as well?
> 
> QOM:
> * object_property_add() takes a non-magical name argument
> * object_gen_name() takes a base name and generates a stream of
>   derived names suitable for object_property_add()
> 
> Memory:
> * memory_region_init() takes a non-magical name argument
> * memory_gen_name() takes a base name... you get the idea
>   actually a wrapper around object_gen_name()

I see what you mean; you could even reuse object_gen_name().  It looks
sane, I guess one has to see a patch to judge if it also _is_ sane. :)

> > > Why is it a good idea have two separate restrictions on property names?
> > > A loser one that applies always (anything but '\0' and '/'), and a
> > > stricter one that applies sometimes (letters, digits, '-', '.', '_',
> > > starting with a letter).
> > > 
> > > If yes, how is "sometimes" defined?
> >
> > It applies to objects created by the user (either in
> > /machine/peripheral, or in /objects).  Why the restriction?  For
> > -object, because creating the object involves QemuOpts.  You then have
> > two ways to satisfy the principle of least astonishment:
> >
> > 1) always use the same restriction when a user creates objects;
> >
> > 2) do not introduce restrictions when a user is not using QemuOpts.
> >
> > We've been doing (2) so far; often it is just because QMP wrappers also
> > used QemuOpts, but not necessarily.  So object_add just does the same.
>
> We've been doing (2) so far simply because we've never wasted a thought
> on it!  Since we're wasting thoughts now: which one do we like better?

User interfaces other than QOM have been doing (2) too.

netdev-add and device-add have been doing (2) because they use QemuOpts
under the hood.

blockdev-add has been consciously doing (2) for node-name.

chardev-add has been doing (1), and I'd argue that this is a bug in
chardev-add.

QOM has two families of operations.

One is -object/object-add/object-del.  This is a high-level operation
that only works with specific QOM classes (those that implement
UserCreatable) and only operate on a specific part of the QOM tree
(/objects).

The other is qom-get/qom-set.  This is a low-level operation that can
explore all of the QOM tree.  It cannot _create_ new objects and
properties, however, so the user cannot escape the naming sandbox that
we put in place for him.

I think it's fair to limit the high-level operations to the same id
space, no matter if they're QemuOpts based or not.

> Based on experience, I'd rather not make "user-created"
> vs. "system-created" a hard boundary.  Once a system-created funny name
> has become ABI, we can't ever let the user create it.  One reason for me
> to prefer (1).

Anything that is outside /objects is "funny", not just anything that has
weird characters in its name.  The QOM API consists of "magic" object
canonical paths and magic property names which, as far as I know, can be
easily listed:

* the aforementioned /machine.rtc-time that lets you detect missed
RTC_CHANGE events

* the /backend tree that includes info on the graphic consoles.  Not
sure if this is considered stable, but it's there.

* /machine/peripheral/foo lets you peek at run-time properties of
-device id=foo - virtio-ballon has a couple of run-time properties,
whose status I am not certain of.  Probably stable but undocumented.

* /objects/bar lets you reconstruct the properties of -object id=bar -
there are no such run-time properties with any promised stability.


In other words, practically all of the QOM API is outside /objects.

But not all hope is lost.  Were we to provide user access to the
creation of graphic consoles, we could preserve the /backend API via
aliases and links.  This way, anything that currently happens in
/machine or /backend can tomorrow happen in /objects, without breaking
backwards compatibility.

Similarly, a QOMified block-backend could be either:

* an object that QEMU creates for you when you give -device
scsi-disk,id=disk,drive=foo.  The canonical path could be something like
/machine/peripheral/disk/drive-backend, with a link in
/machine/peripheral/disk/backend.

* an object that you create with -object
block-backend,id=bar,blockdev=myimg and reference with -device
scsi-disk,backend=bar.  The canonical path would be of course
/objects/bar, but the same link would exist in
/machine/peripheral/disk/backend.

In either case, you would be able to find the block-backend using the
same QOM path and property.

> So the "automatic arrayification" convenience feature added a property
> name restriction.  What makes us sure this is the last time we add name
> restrictions?

Nothing.  However, does it matter, as long as the now-disallowed names
were not possible at all in -object/object_add?

Paolo