Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 14/17] monitor: Decouple terminals

[Anthony Liguori]

Anthony Liguori wrote:
> I'd like to see a few changes to make things a bit closer to the long 
> term goals for the monitor (having proper multiple monitors devoid of 
> global state).
>
> Here's what I'd suggest:
>
> 1) Make monitor_printf() take a monitor state.  The easiest thing to 
> do would be to introduce this in your previous rename patch making 
> everything use current_monitor.
> 2) Introduce current_monitor and default_monitor global variables.  
> They map to what you describe above and should be maintained as such.
> 3) Make all monitor callbacks take a monitor state
> 4) Convert monitor_printf()s called from monitor callbacks to use the 
> passed monitor state
> 5) Eliminate all uses of current_monitor/default_monitor.
6) Make monitor callbacks return an error value
7) Convert all monitor callbacks to return error values instead of 
printing error messages
8) Introduce greater structure to monitor_printf()s.  For instance, we 
have a number of monitor commands that essentially print dictionaries 
(set of key value pairs).  We should introduce a higher level function 
like monitor_print_list("hd", "locked=false", "file=foo.img", NULL).
9) Introduce computer mode to monitor that makes monitor very parsable 
to a non-human user.
10) Introduce library that interacts with monitor over any supported 
character device.

Just to fill out more of my long term thinking about the monitor.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

> I'd say, 1 and 2 are required for this patchset.  I think 3 and 4 
> would be pretty easy to add to your patchset.  I think 5 is probably 
> tougher and could wait for another day.
>
> Regards,
>
> Anthony Liguori