--- /dev/null
+# VPP API Language {#api_lang_doc}
+
+The VPP binary API is a message passing API.
+The VPP API language is used to define a RPC interface between VPP and its
+control plane. The API messages supports shared memory transport and
+Unix domain sockets (SOCK_STREAM).
+
+The wire format is essentially that of a packed C struct.
+
+The VPP API compiler is located in *src/tools/vppapigen* and can currently
+compile to JSON or C (used by the VPP binary itself).
+
+## Language definition
+
+### Defining a messages
+
+There are 3 types of message exchanges:
+
+* Request/Reply
+The client sends a request message and the server replies with a
+single reply message. The convention is that the reply message is
+named as method_name + \_reply.
+
+* Dump/Detail
+The client sends a "bulk" request message to the server, and the
+server replies with a set of detail messages. These messages may be of
+different type. A dump/detail call must be enclosed in a control ping
+block (Otherwise the client will not know the end of the bulk
+transmission). The method name must end with method + "\_dump", the
+reply message should be named method + "\_details". The exception here
+is for the methods that return multiple message types
+(e.g. sw_interface_dump). The Dump/Detail methods are typically used
+for acquiring bulk information, like the complete FIB table.
+
+* Events
+The client can register for getting asynchronous notifications from
+the server. This is useful for getting interface state changes, and so
+on. The method name for requesting notifications is conventionally
+prefixed with "want_". E.g. "want_interface_events". Which
+notification types results from an event registration is defined in
+the service definition.
+
+A message from a client must include the 'client_index', an opaque
+cookie identifying the sender, and a 'context' field to let the client
+match request with reply.
+
+An example of a message definition. The client sends the show_version request,
+the server replies with the show_version_reply.
+
+The *client_index* and *context* fields are required in all requests.
+The *context* is returned by the server and is used by the client to
+match up request and reply messages.
+
+```
+define show_version
+{
+ u32 client_index;
+ u32 context;
+};
+define show_version_reply
+{
+ u32 context;
+ i32 retval;
+ string program [limit = 32];
+ string version [limit = 32];
+ string build_date [limit = 32];
+ string build_directory [limit = 256];
+};
+
+```
+
+The flags are not used by the clients, but have special meaning
+for some of the tracing and debugging of the API.
+The *autoreply* flag is a shorthand for a reply message with just a
+*retval* field.
+
+```
+ define : DEFINE ID '{' block_statements_opt '}' ';'
+ define : flist DEFINE ID '{' block_statements_opt '}' ';'
+ flist : flag
+ | flist flag
+ flag : MANUAL_PRINT
+ | MANUAL_ENDIAN
+ | DONT_TRACE
+ | AUTOREPLY
+
+ block_statements_opt : block_statements
+ block_statements : block_statement
+ | block_statements block_statement
+ block_statement : declaration
+ | option
+ declaration : type_specifier ID ';'
+ | type_specifier ID '[' ID '=' assignee ']' ';'
+ declaration : type_specifier ID '[' NUM ']' ';'
+ | type_specifier ID '[' ID ']' ';'
+ type_specifier : U8
+ | U16
+ | U32
+ | U64
+ | I8
+ | I16
+ | I32
+ | I64
+ | F64
+ | BOOL
+ | STRING
+ type_specifier : ID
+```
+
+
+### Options
+The *option* word is used to specify meta information.
+The only current use is to specify a semantic version of the .api file itself.
+
+Example:
+```
+option version = "1.0.0";
+```
+
+```
+
+ option : OPTION ID '=' assignee ';'
+ assignee : NUM
+ | TRUE
+ | FALSE
+ | STRING_LITERAL
+```
+
+### Defining new types
+
+New user defined types are defined just like messages.
+A typedef has two forms. It can either define an alias for a
+different type (or array).
+
+Example:
+
+```
+typedef u8 ip4_address[4];
+typedef u8 ip6_address[16];
+```
+
+Where the above defines two new types *vl_api_ip4_address_t* and
+*vl_api_ip6_address_t*. These are aliases for the underlaying
+u8 array.
+
+In the other form, it is used to specify an abstract data type.
+
+```
+enum address_family {
+ ADDRESS_IP4 = 0,
+ ADDRESS_IP6,
+};
+
+union address_union {
+ vl_api_ip4_address_t ip4;
+ vl_api_ip6_address_t ip6;
+};
+
+typedef address {
+ vl_api_address_family_t af;
+ vl_api_address_union_t un;
+};
+```
+
+Where the new type *vl_api_address_t*
+
+```
+ typedef : TYPEDEF ID '{' block_statements_opt '}' ';'
+ typedef : TYPEDEF declaration
+```
+
+
+### Importing Definitions
+You can use definitions from other .api files by importing them.
+To import another .api's definitions, you add an import statement
+to the top of your file:
+
+import "vnet/ip/ip_types.api";
+
+By default you can only use definitions from directly imported .api files.
+
+The API compiler searches for imported files in a set of directories
+specified on the API compiler command line using the --includedir flag.
+```
+import : IMPORT STRING_LITERAL ';'
+```
+
+### Comments
+
+The API language uses C style comments.
+```
+/* */
+//
+```
+
+### Enumerations
+Enums are similar to enums in C.
+
+Every enum definition must contain a constant that maps to zero
+as its first element. This is because:
+
+There must be a zero value, so that we can use 0 as a numeric default value.
+The zero value needs to be the first element.
+
+As in C, enums can be used as flags or just as numbers.
+The on-wire, and in memory representation size of an enum can be specified.
+Not all language bindings will support that. The default size is 4 (u32).
+
+Example
+```
+enum ip_neighbor_flags
+{
+ IP_API_NEIGHBOR_FLAG_NONE = 0,
+ IP_API_NEIGHBOR_FLAG_STATIC = 0x1,
+ IP_API_NEIGHBOR_FLAG_NO_FIB_ENTRY = 0x2,
+};
+```
+
+Which generates the vl_api_ip_neighbor_flags_t in the C binding.
+In Python that is represented as an IntFlag object
+VppEnum.vl_api_ip_neighbor_flags_t.
+
+```
+ enum : ENUM ID '{' enum_statements '}' ';'
+ enum : ENUM ID ':' enum_size '{' enum_statements '}' ';'
+ enum_size : U8
+ | U16
+ | U32
+ enum_statements : enum_statement
+ | enum_statements enum_statement
+ enum_statement : ID '=' NUM ','
+ | ID ','
+```
+
+### Services
+The service statement defines the relationship between messages.
+For request/response and dump/details messages it ties the
+request with the reply. For events, it specifies which events
+that can be received for a given want_* call.
+
+Example:
+```
+service {
+ rpc want_interface_events returns want_interface_events_reply
+ events sw_interface_event;
+};
+
+```
+
+Which states that the request want_interface_events returns a
+want_interface_events_reply and if enabled the client will
+receive sw_interface_event messages whenever interface states changes.
+
+```
+ service : SERVICE '{' service_statements '}' ';'
+ service_statements : service_statement
+ | service_statements service_statement
+ service_statement : RPC ID RETURNS NULL ';'
+ | RPC ID RETURNS ID ';'
+ | RPC ID RETURNS STREAM ID ';'
+ | RPC ID RETURNS ID EVENTS event_list ';'
+ event_list : events
+ | event_list events
+ events : ID
+ | ID ','
+```
+
+
+## Types
+### Scalar Value Types
+
+.api type|size|C type|Python type
+---------|----|------------------
+i8 | 1|i8 |int
+u8 | 1|u8 |int
+i16 | 2|i16 |int
+u16 | 2|u16 |int
+i32 | 4|i32 |int
+u32 | 4|u32 |int
+i64 | 8|i64 |int
+u64 | 8|u64 |int
+f64 | 8|f64 |float
+bool | 1|bool |boolean
+string |variable|vl_api_string_t|str
+
+### User Defined Types
+#### vnet/ip/ip_types.api
+
+.api type|size|C type|Python type
+---------|----|------|-----------
+vl_api_address_t|20|vl_api_address_t|`<class 'ipaddress.IPv4Address'> or <class 'ipaddress.IPv6Address'>`
+vl_api_ip4_address_t|4|vl_api_ip4_address_t|`<class 'ipaddress.IPv4Address'>`
+vl_api_ip6_address_t|16|vl_api_ip6_address_t|`<class 'ipaddress.IPv6Address'>`
+vl_api_prefix_t|21|vl_api_prefix_t|`<class 'ipaddress.IPv4Network'> or <class 'ipaddress.IPv6Network'>`
+vl_api_ip4_prefix_t|5|vl_api_ip4_prefix_t|`<class 'ipaddress.IPv4Network'>`
+vl_api_ip6_prefix_t|17|vl_api_ip6_prefix_t|`<class 'ipaddress.IPv6Network'>`
+
+#### vnet/ethernet/ethernet_types.api
+.api type|size|C type|Python type
+---------|----|------|-----------
+vl_api_mac_address_t|6|vl_api_mac_address_t|`class 'vpp_papi.MACAddress'>`
+
+#### vnet/interface_types.api
+.api type|size|C type|Python type
+---------|----|------|-----------
+vl_api_interface_index_t|4|vl_api_interface_index_t|int
+
+### New explicit types
+
+#### String versus bytes
+A byte string with a maximum length of 64:
+```
+u8 name[64];
+```
+Before the "string" type was added, text string were defined like this.
+The implications of that was the user would have to know if the field
+represented a \0 ended C-string or a fixed length byte string.
+The wire format of the 'string' type is a u32 length
+
+An IPv4 or IPv6 address was previously defined like:
+```
+u8 is_ip6;
+u8 address[16];
+```
+
+Which made it hard for language bindings to represent the
+address as anything but a byte string.
+The new explicit address types are shown above.
+
+## Language generators
+
+The VPP API compiler currently has two output modules. One generating JSON
+and one generating C header files that are directly used by the VPP
+infrastructure and plugins.
+
+The C/C++, Python, Go Lua, and Java language bindings are generated based
+on the JSON files.
+
+### Future considerations
+- [ ] Generate C/C++ (vapi) client code directly from vppapigen
+- [ ] Embed JSON definitions into the API server, so dynamic languages
+ can download them directly without going via the filesystem and JSON
+ files.
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