Re: [dpdk-dev] [EXT] Re: [v1, 1/3] telemetry: enable storing pointer value

[Gowrishankar Muthukrishnan <gmuthukrishn@marvell.com>]

Hi Bruce,

> I'm a little curious as to the usefulness of having a pointer value in telemetry
> output? How would a telemetry user be expected to use pointer information
> returned? Printing pointers seems something more useful for a debugging or
> tracing interface than a telemetry one.
> 

Thanks for the quick review. I enabled _ptr API keeping few things in mind:

1. User need to explicitly type cast pointer value (ie address) to uint64_t
    which otherwise can cause compiler warning (Wint-conversion). Although
    u64 is large enough for holding address as value, type casting is problematic
    for non-64 bit machines (eg 32 bit). One other option is to use uintptr_t
    as a holder.

2. With this API, code walk could be easier as user can interpret the accessed
     data better (ie ptr is address value). _ptr API is meant for pointer variables,
     though it is up to user to choose.

3. Also while debugging telemetry date using script like usertools/dpdk-telemetry.py,
    perceiving address as hex is quicker than same as u64.

Answering on returned data, user needs to convert stringified hex to pointer value.

Regards,
Gowrishankar