block: Document -drive problematic code and bugs

-blockdev and blockdev_add convert their arguments via QObject to
BlockdevOptions for qmp_blockdev_add(), which converts them back to
QObject, then to a flattened QDict.  The QDict's members are typed
according to the QAPI schema.

-drive converts its argument via QemuOpts to a (flat) QDict.  This
QDict's members are all QString.

Thus, the QType of a flat QDict member depends on whether it comes
from -drive or -blockdev/blockdev_add, except when the QAPI type maps
to QString, which is the case for 'str' and enumeration types.

The block layer core extracts generic configuration from the flat
QDict, and the block driver extracts driver-specific configuration.

Both commonly do so by converting (parts of) the flat QDict to
QemuOpts, which turns all values into strings.  Not exactly elegant,
but correct.

However, A few places access the flat QDict directly:

* Most of them access members that are always QString.  Correct.

* bdrv_open_inherit() accesses a boolean, carefully.  Correct.

* nfs_config() uses a QObject input visitor.  Correct only because the
  visited type contains nothing but QStrings.

* nbd_config() and ssh_config() use a QObject input visitor, and the
  visited types contain non-QStrings: InetSocketAddress members
  @numeric, @to, @ipv4, @ipv6.  -drive works as long as you don't try
  to use them (they're all optional).  @to is ignored anyway.

  Reproducer:
  -drive driver=ssh,server.host=h,server.port=22,server.ipv4,path=p
  -drive driver=nbd,server.type=inet,server.data.host=h,server.data.port=22,server.data.ipv4
  both fail with "Invalid parameter type for 'data.ipv4', expected: boolean"

Add suitable comments to all these places.  Mark the buggy ones FIXME.

"Fortunately", -drive's driver-specific options are entirely
undocumented.

Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>
Message-id: 1490895797-29094-5-git-send-email-armbru@redhat.com
[mreitz: Fixed two typos]
Reviewed-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Max Reitz <mreitz@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/block/nfs.c b/block/nfs.c
index 3f43f6e26a..0816678307 100644
--- a/block/nfs.c
+++ b/block/nfs.c
@@ -474,6 +474,13 @@ static NFSServer *nfs_config(QDict *options, Error **errp)
         goto out;
     }
 
+    /*
+     * Caution: this works only because all scalar members of
+     * NFSServer are QString in @crumpled_addr.  The visitor expects
+     * @crumpled_addr to be typed according to the QAPI schema.  It
+     * is when @options come from -blockdev or blockdev_add.  But when
+     * they come from -drive, they're all QString.
+     */
     iv = qobject_input_visitor_new(crumpled_addr);
     visit_type_NFSServer(iv, NULL, &server, &local_error);
     if (local_error) {