Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] leds: Add Intel Cherry Trail Whiskey Cove PMIC LEDs

From: Jacek Anaszewski
Date: Fri Feb 15 2019 - 16:43:24 EST


Hi Yauhen,

On 2/15/19 8:27 AM, Yauhen Kharuzhy wrote:
On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 12:03:07AM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
Hi!

I suggest that we deal with this special case by adding 3 custom
sysfs attributes:

1) "mode" which when read, prints, e.g. :
manual [on-when-charging]

While this allows _user on console_ to control everything using echo,
it is not suitable for applications trying to control LEDs.

As there's nothing special about the case here, I believe we should
have generic solution here.

My preffered solution would be "hardware" trigger that leaves the LED
in hardware control.

As you explained in the parts which I snipped, there are many
devices which have a similar choice for a LED being under hw or
user control. I can see how this looks like a trigger and how we
could use the trigger API for this.

I believe though, that if we implement a "virtual" (for lack of
a better word) trigger for this, that this should be done in the
LED core. I can envision this working like this:

1) Add a:

hw_control_set(struct led_classdev *led_cdev, bool enable_hw_control);

Please note that we have support for hw patterns in the pattern trigger.
(see how drivers/leds/leds-sc27xx-bltc.c makes use of it for its
breathing pattern).
We have also support for hw blinking in timer trigger via blink_set op.

In addition to that there is brightness_hw_changed sysfs attribute
with led_classdev_notify_brightness_hw_changed() LED API.

Couldn't they be used in concert to support the specific features
of the device in question?

I believe main issue here is this:

Hardware can automatically control the LED according to the charging
status, or it can be used as normal software-controlled LED.

I believe we should use trigger to select if hardware controls it or
not (and then add driver-specific files to describe the
details). Other proposal is in the mail thread, too.

But there are two kinds of 'hardware control' here in discussion:
1:
a) PMIC switching LED off/on/breathing/blinking reflected the charging
state (charger is controlled by PMIC entirely without of
software intervention) â 'hw controlled' mode

Can we detect when charging is activated?

b) Software controls when LED is on/off/breathing/blinking but
patterns are generated by PMIC â 'sw controlled' mode.

2:
a) parameters of lighting (continuous/blinking/breathing) are
set in the PMIC and the PMIC generates patterns
b) blinking/breathing patterns are generated by the software
entirely.

It seems that we sometimes confuse this two kinds of hw control definitions
in the discussion.


The simple use case question: with this hardware and existing LED class
API, what user/app should to do to make LED breathing with hw-generated
pattern?

As I see, user should activate 'pattern' trigger and write to its hw_pattern attribute...
hm... big pattern which describes every step of breathing? Some
simplified pattern which should be interpreted as 'enable the breathing
an set its frequency' by driver? Which level of simplification will be
suitable? Which criteria of pattern rejection should be?

Please see my reply to Hans. We need some simplified device specific
syntax of hw_pattern for this device, similarly like in:
Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-class-led-driver-sc27xx

--
Best regards,
Jacek Anaszewski