Use WorkloadRequestUseMergePatch in UpdateReclaimablePods().

Author: mbobrovskyi

pkg/workload/workload.go

@@ -1098,9 +1098,20 @@ func HasQuotaReservation(w *kueue.Workload) bool {
 
 // UpdateReclaimablePods updates the ReclaimablePods list for the workload with SSA.
 func UpdateReclaimablePods(ctx context.Context, c client.Client, w *kueue.Workload, reclaimablePods []kueue.ReclaimablePod) error {
-	patch := BaseSSAWorkload(w, false)
-	patch.Status.ReclaimablePods = reclaimablePods
-	return c.Status().Patch(ctx, patch, client.Apply, client.FieldOwner(constants.ReclaimablePodsMgr))
+	if features.Enabled(features.WorkloadRequestUseMergePatch) {
+		return clientutil.PatchStatus(ctx, c, w, func() (bool, error) {
+			w.Status.ReclaimablePods = reclaimablePods
+			return true, nil
+		})
+	}
+	wlPatch := BaseSSAWorkload(w, true)
+	wlPatch.Status.ReclaimablePods = reclaimablePods
+	err := c.Status().Patch(ctx, wlPatch, client.Apply, client.FieldOwner(constants.ReclaimablePodsMgr))
+	if err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
+	wlPatch.DeepCopyInto(w)
+	return nil
 }
 
 // ReclaimablePodsAreEqual checks if two Reclaimable pods are semantically equal