linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/3] virtio: dwords->qwords

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Message-ID: <36501d9c-9db9-45e6-9a77-1efd530545ee@lunn.ch>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2025 16:39:06 +0200
From: Andrew Lunn <andrew@...n.ch>
To: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
	Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>, Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>,
	Eugenio Pérez <eperezma@...hat.com>,
	Xuan Zhuo <xuanzhuo@...ux.alibaba.com>,
	Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
	virtualization@...ts.linux.dev, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] virtio: dwords->qwords

> > DeviceFeaturesSel 0x014
> > 
> > Device (host) features word selection.
> > Writing to this register selects a set of 32 device feature bits accessible by reading from DeviceFeatures.
> > 
> > and
> > 
> > DriverFeaturesSel 0x024
> > 
> > Activated (guest) features word selection
> > Writing to this register selects a set of 32 activated feature bits accessible by writing to DriverFeatures.
> > 
> > I would interpret this as meaning a feature word is a u32. Hence a
> > DWORD is a u64, as the current code uses.
> > 
> > 	Andrew
> 
> 
> Hmm indeed.
> At the same time, pci transport has:
> 
>          u8 padding[2];  /* Pad to full dword. */
> 
> and i2c has:
> 
> The \field{padding} is used to pad to full dword.
> 
> both of which use dword to mean 32 bit.
> 
> This comes from PCI which also does not define word but uses it
> to mean 16 bit.

Yes, reading the spec, you need to consider the context 'word' is used
in. Maybe this is something which can be cleaned up, made uniform
across the whole document?

> I don't have the problem changing everything to some other
> wording completely but "chunk" is uninformative, and
> more importantly does not give a clean way to refer to
> 2 chunks and 4 chunks.
> Similarly, if we use "word" to mean 32 bit there is n clean
> way to refer to 16 bits which we use a lot.
> 
> 
> using word as 16 bit has the advantage that you
> can say byte/word/dword/qword and these do not
> cause too much confusion.

> So I am still inclined to align everything on pci terminology
> but interested to hear what alternative you suggest.

How about something simple:

#define VIRTIO_FEATURES_DU32WORDS	2
#define VIRTIO_FEATURES_U32WORDS	(VIRTIO_FEATURES_D32WORDS * 2)

or, if the spec moves away from using 'word':

#define VIRTIO_FEATURES_U64S	2
#define VIRTIO_FEATURES_U32S	(VIRTIO_FEATURES_U32S * 2)

The coding style says not to use Hungarian notation, but here it
actually make sense, and avoids the ambiguity in the spec.

	Andrew