Re: [PATCH v5 10/15] perf jevents: Generate metrics and events as separate tables

[John Garry <john.g.garry@oracle.com>]

On 30/01/2023 22:54, Ian Rogers wrote:
>> This is almost identical to generated perf_pmu__find_events_table(),
>> except we return a pmu_metrics_table * (instead of a pmu_events_table *)
>> and also return the metric table member (instead of event table). But
>> the definitions are:
>>
>> /* Struct used to make the PMU event table implementation opaque to
>> callers. */
>> struct pmu_events_table {
>>           const struct compact_pmu_event *entries;
>>           size_t length;
>> };
>>
>> /* Struct used to make the PMU metric table implementation opaque to
>> callers. */
>> struct pmu_metrics_table {
>>           const struct compact_pmu_event *entries;
>>           size_t length;
>> };
>>
>> Those structs are defined to be the same thing, so I am failing to see
>> the point in a) separate structure types b) why so much duplication
>>
>> As for b), I know that they are generated and the python code may be
>> simpler this way (is it?), but still...
> Agreed. The point is to separate the two tables for the typing at the
> API layer, internally the representation is the same. When we decode
> one we get a pmu_event and the other we get a pmu_metric, so we don't
> want to allow the tables to be switched - hence two types.

I do see the advantage of stronger types but it does seem a bit odd to 
achieve it like this.

Thanks,
John