Re: [libvirt] [PATCH] lib: implement new API to retrieve the list of CPU models

Eric Blake <eblake(a)redhat.com&gt; writes: > I'm not sure whether returning XML or a straight-up list makes more > sense. If you used char ***models, then the user would get an array of > directly-usable strings, "486", "pentium", ..., instead of a document > that has to be parsed. On the other hand, your idea of returning XML > lets us return information for multiple arches simultaneously. But do we > need that flexibility, since arch is also an input parameter? Is the > idea that you pass arch=NULL to get the full list, or arch="x86" to get > the x86 subset of the xml? Why not just make arch mandatory and return > char ***; but then you have the question of which arches are supported. I've thought a bit about XML vs Array and whether specifying the arch in the returned XML snippet or not, and these are the reasons behind my choice: 1) leave room for VIR_CONNECT_GET_CPU_MODEL_NAMES_EXPAND_FEATURES, in the same way as it is done by virConnectBaselineCPU. It might turn useful in future to get all the data in one shot, without requiring additional round-trips for each model trough virConnectBaselineCPU.

2) as you said, support arch=NULL to get the full list (and now that I've thought more about it, I should change the error to VIR_ERR_NO_SUPPORT when arch==NULL instead of raising an internal error).