[PATCH 1/2] link cache: Add new link api to get link object by family

[Thomas Graf]

On 12/12/12 at 02:10pm, roopa at cumulusnetworks.com wrote:
> From: roopa <roopa at cumulusnetworks.com>
> 
> This patch adds two new api's to get a link object by family:
> 
> struct rtnl_link *rtnl_link_get_by_family(struct nl_cache *cache,
>                                           int family, int ifindex)
> struct rtnl_link *rtnl_link_get_by_family_and_name(struct nl_cache *cache,
>                                                    int family,
>                                                    const char *name)
> 
> This change comes with the recent addition of AF_BRIDGE support.
> link cache can now contain objects of more than one family.
> And the current link get api's only return objects of type AF_UNSPEC.
> The above new apis will let users query a link object by family.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Roopa Prabhu <roopa at cumulusnetworks.com>

What about solving this on the cache level instead of adding
every possible key combination.

Something like:

  struct nl_object *nl_cache_find(struct nl_cache *cache,
                                  struct nl_object *filter);

Unlike nl_cache_search() it would not need a full match but
would use nl_object_match_filter() and return the first
object that matches all attributes set.

An additional benefit would be that it could possibly be
optimized if a hashtable is used.