Re: [PATCH v2 2/4] Documentation: Add documentation for APM X-Gene SoC PMU DTS binding

[Tai Tri Nguyen]

Hi Mark,

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 9:56 AM, Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 02:46:05PM -0700, Tai Tri Nguyen wrote:
>> Hi Rob,
>>
>> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 1:56 PM, Rob Herring <robh@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 12:31:22PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
>> >> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 01:04:53PM -0700, Tai Tri Nguyen wrote:
>> >> > >> +Required properties for MCB subnode:
>> >> > >> +- compatible         : Shall be "apm,xgene-pmu-mcb".
>> >> > >> +- reg                        : First resource shall be the MCB PMU resource.
>> >> > >> +- index                      : Instance number of the MCB PMU.
>> >> > >> +
>> >> > >> +Required properties for MC subnode:
>> >> > >> +- compatible         : Shall be "apm,xgene-pmu-mc".
>> >> > >> +- reg                        : First resource shall be the MC PMU resource.
>> >> > >> +- index                      : Instance number of the MC PMU.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Don't use indexes. You probably need phandles to the nodes these are
>> >> > > related to.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > How many variations of child nodes do you expect to have? 2, 10, 50? You
>> >> > > might want to just collapse all this down to a single node and put this
>> >> > > information in the driver if it is fixed for each SoC and there's only a
>> >> > > handful.
>> >> > >
>> >> >
>> >> > For each kind of PMU, for example memory controller PMU, I expect to
>> >> > have the number of instances up to 8.
>> >> > They are actually all independent PMU nodes and have their own CSR memory bases.
>> >> > The indexes are used for exposing the devices to perf user only. It
>> >> > doesn't have an impact on the programming model.
>> >> > Mark also had the same concern.
>> >>
>> >> Regardless, I'll need an ack from Rob or Mark before I can merge this.
>> >
>> > I still have a concern with this. Needing an index to expose to the user
>> > is generally not a valid reason. That's OS specific and therefore
>> > doesn't belong in DT.
>> >
>> > Rob
>>
>> I can use device name here. However, the perf event names will be
>> different between DT and ACPI which I want to avoid.
>> And the names don't look good at all.
>> Also, specifically for MC and MCB PMUs, the indexes are compared
>> against the active MC/MCB mask to find out whether they are populated
>> or not.
>> Without using the index property, I will also need a mapping function
>> of physical device addresses and their physical ids.
>
> What's wrong with using ${device}.{physical_address} as the PMU name?
> That would be unique and consistent regardless of the firmware, no
> mapping nor index property necessary.
>
> That's sufficient for any user already familiar with the topology, a
> familiarity you seem to be assuming regardless by not explicitly
> describing the topology in the DT.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark.

Okay. I'll do fix it for the next patches.

Thanks,
-- 
Tai