Hi,
I've just merged updates to the Mirage Xenstore protocol and client
implementation to master (but not yet released). There are
backwards-incompatible API changes which I'd like to get right before
release, so feedback is welcome. Note the signatures are separate from the
Mirage V2_LWT ones -- this is an internal implementation library used for
Xen Mirage kernels only. I'll not release this code until (a) we're happy
with it; and (b) patches are available for all users in opam (typical users
include Mirage device drivers and Xen toolstacks)
The reasons I'm proposing backwards-incompatible changes are:
1. to hide the 'client' type from clients. Since there should only be one
real Xenstore connection per process (whether Unix domain sockets or shared
memory), this ended up being a singleton. There doesn't seem any point in
requesting the user 'create' and 'manage' these when the library was doing
it all anyway.
2. for transactions and watches, I've made this into a more monadic style.
The examples in the README.md show what I mean.
3. to move away from exceptions (I'm looking at you, ENOENT) and to use
option types. So we now have 'read' and 'read_exn'. Does anyone know of any
other functions whose signatures could be improved?
4. (for a crash-resistant Irmin Xenstore server): there's now control over
where we are in the shared memory ring. Previously a 'read' would 'consume'
data immediately, which would be lost if we crashed. Now 'read' should not
advance the stream, and the server must decide when is appropriate and call
an 'advance' function manually.
A couple of house-keeping items:
* The repo mirage/ocaml-xenstore which contains the Xenstore protocol
implementation and client code used to be a fork of djs55/ocaml-xenstore.
I've fixed this anomaly and now the mirage/ocaml-xenstore version is the
authoritative version.
* The license of the Xenstore protocol code and client is the Mirage
standard (ISC)
* The code has been re-indented with ocp-indent --syntax=lwt (Mirage
standard style?)
Cheers,
--
Dave Scott
I've just merged updates to the Mirage Xenstore protocol and client
implementation to master (but not yet released). There are
backwards-incompatible API changes which I'd like to get right before
release, so feedback is welcome. Note the signatures are separate from the
Mirage V2_LWT ones -- this is an internal implementation library used for
Xen Mirage kernels only. I'll not release this code until (a) we're happy
with it; and (b) patches are available for all users in opam (typical users
include Mirage device drivers and Xen toolstacks)
The reasons I'm proposing backwards-incompatible changes are:
1. to hide the 'client' type from clients. Since there should only be one
real Xenstore connection per process (whether Unix domain sockets or shared
memory), this ended up being a singleton. There doesn't seem any point in
requesting the user 'create' and 'manage' these when the library was doing
it all anyway.
2. for transactions and watches, I've made this into a more monadic style.
The examples in the README.md show what I mean.
3. to move away from exceptions (I'm looking at you, ENOENT) and to use
option types. So we now have 'read' and 'read_exn'. Does anyone know of any
other functions whose signatures could be improved?
4. (for a crash-resistant Irmin Xenstore server): there's now control over
where we are in the shared memory ring. Previously a 'read' would 'consume'
data immediately, which would be lost if we crashed. Now 'read' should not
advance the stream, and the server must decide when is appropriate and call
an 'advance' function manually.
A couple of house-keeping items:
* The repo mirage/ocaml-xenstore which contains the Xenstore protocol
implementation and client code used to be a fork of djs55/ocaml-xenstore.
I've fixed this anomaly and now the mirage/ocaml-xenstore version is the
authoritative version.
* The license of the Xenstore protocol code and client is the Mirage
standard (ISC)
* The code has been re-indented with ocp-indent --syntax=lwt (Mirage
standard style?)
Cheers,
--
Dave Scott