Re: [EXT] Re: [PATCH v4 3/4] clocksource/drivers/timer-mediatek: Convert timer-mediatek to a loadable module

From: Daniel Lezcano

Date: Wed Mar 25 2026 - 11:27:24 EST



Hi Zhipeng,

On 3/10/26 09:41, Zhipeng Wang wrote:


Hi Zhipeng,

On 3/9/26 06:31, Zhipeng Wang wrote:
Hello Daniel,

I'd be very happy to collaborate on this!

Great, let me see if I can cook a patch in the next days

My availability: I can dedicate time to work on this over the next few weeks.
I'm happy to help with:
- Testing the new macros with IMX timer drivers
- Converting existing drivers as examples
- Reviewing and testing patches
- Documentation

That's awesome, thanks

My understanding is that, based on your RFC, we should use two macros —
TIMER_OF_DECLARE_PDEV and TIMER_OF_DECLARE_PLATFORM_DRIVER.

Yes, but also sort out the existing TIMER_OF_DECLARE macro vs MODULE in
order to prevent #ifdef MODULE in the drivers

Hi Daniel,

Yes, that's our goal.

I'll test the new macros (TIMER_OF_DECLARE_PLATFORM_DRIVER and
TIMER_OF_DECLARE_EARLY_PLATFORM_DRIVER) with the IMX timer drivers
once the patches are available.

I think I have an idea on how to achieve that. That will result in the removal of TIMER_OF_DECLARE() when all drivers will be changed to use the new macro.

The #ifdef MODULE macro is set when the driver is compiled as a module.

So we can do something like:

#ifdef MODULE

#define TIMER_OF_DECLARE_PDEV(name, compat, data, fn) \
OF_DECLARE_1_RET(timer_pdev, name, compat, data, fn)


#else

#define TIMER_OF_DECLARE_PDEV(__name, compat, data, fn) \
OF_DECLARE_1_RET(of_pdev_timer_match_table,
__name, compat, data, fn)

static struct platform_driver __##__name##_timer_driver = {
.probe = __##__name##_timer_probe,
.driver = {
.name = name,
.of_match_table = of_pdev_timer_match_table,
},
};
module_platform_driver(__##__name##_timer_driver);

#endif

So we deal with two tables, one for platform device non module and one module for modules.

The first one is called by the timer-of init routine. The other one is called by the probe function.

The drawback will be the match table will be common to all timer drivers. So probe will be a bit slower. May be there is an area of optimization here.