[Spice-devel] Adding a proper marshaller/demarshaller to spice

[Alexander Larsson]

I've been doing some research on adding a proper validating demarshaller
to spice. What i mean by this is a piece of code that parses the bytes
recieved from the network, validates that it is a proper spice message
and then generates an internal structure describing the request.

Right now we more or less read packed structures from the network and
push validation out into any place that uses it. This has multiple
issues. For instance the structs are not aligneds properly for
performance, the validation is hard to review, its hard to extend
messages (add to the structs) while being backwards compatible. 

I have constructed a simple language to describe the current spice
protocol. Its attached to this mail, please report any strangeness you
find. I have also written a parser in python for this language, and I
plan to write a code generator based on this that can generate
validating (de)marshaller code which we will use in spice.

The plan to get this into spice is then this:
1. Make the code use the generated (de)marshallers to marshal the
   network data from/into the current spice structures.
2. Split all current structures used in both the Qxl pci commands
   and for network marshalling into two copies, one QxlFoo used
   for qxl and one SpiceFoo used internally.
3. Now no external entity depends on the spice structs, so we
   can change them as we please into regular non-packed structs
   with pointers instead of offsets, etc.
4. Make a copy of the spice protocol and use it for a new
   (de)marshaller with major number == 2, picking implementation
   in the client based on the server major number.
5. Start modifying the protocol description for the new major.


I have a bunch of protocol changes I want to do in the new major. For
instance, on the network all "offsets" in the current protocol can be
removed and instead we can put the relevant data inline. We can also
make parts of messages totally optional if not used (like clip region)
such that we send no data if they are not used. I also want to simplify
some the stroke operation and remove the clip-by-path mode. 

Additionally there are some changes i want to do to the internal
structures. For instance, SpicePoint members should be reordered to be
compatible with pixman points, and Clip regions should always be stored
as pointers to pixman regions. 

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl at redhat.com            alexander.larsson at gmail.com 
He's a notorious alcoholic jungle king who must take medication to keep him 
sane. She's a strong-willed mute former first lady who believes she is the 
reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian queen. They fight crime! 
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