Re: [PATCH v6 01/19] drm/atomic: Document atomic commit lifetime

From: Thomas Zimmermann

Date: Wed May 27 2026 - 04:54:26 EST




Am 26.05.26 um 18:46 schrieb Maxime Ripard:
How drm_atomic_commit and the various entity structures are allocated
and freed isn't really trivial. Document it.

Reviewed-by: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart+renesas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Maxime Ripard <mripard@xxxxxxxxxx>

Reviewed-by: Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@xxxxxxx>

---
Documentation/gpu/drm-kms.rst | 6 ++++
drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c | 72 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 78 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/drm-kms.rst b/Documentation/gpu/drm-kms.rst
index d22817fdf9aa..36d76e391074 100644
--- a/Documentation/gpu/drm-kms.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/drm-kms.rst
@@ -282,10 +282,16 @@ structure, ordering of committing state changes to hardware is sequenced using
:c:type:`struct drm_crtc_commit <drm_crtc_commit>`.
Read on in this chapter, and also in :ref:`drm_atomic_helper` for more detailed
coverage of specific topics.
+Atomic State Lifetime
+---------------------
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c
+ :doc: state lifetime
+
Handling Driver Private State
-----------------------------
.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c
:doc: handling driver private state
diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c
index 170de30c28ae..3c5714481ad2 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/drm_atomic.c
@@ -45,10 +45,82 @@
#include <drm/drm_colorop.h>
#include "drm_crtc_internal.h"
#include "drm_internal.h"
+/**
+ * DOC: state lifetime
+ *
+ * &drm_atomic_commit represents an update to modeset pipeline state.
+ * It's a transient object that holds a state update as a collection of
+ * pointers to individual objects' states. &struct drm_atomic_commit has
+ * a much shorter lifetime than the objects' states, since it's only
+ * allocated while preparing, checking or committing the update, while
+ * object states are allocated when preparing the update and kept alive
+ * as long as they are active in the device.
+ *
+ * Their respective lifetimes are:
+ *
+ * - at reset time, the object reset implementation allocates a new
+ * default state and stores it in the object state pointer.
+ *
+ * - whenever a new update is needed:
+ *
+ * + drm_atomic_commit_alloc() allocates a new &drm_atomic_commit
+ * instance.
+ *
+ * + The code triggering the commit (ioctl, client modeset,
+ * drm_atomic_helper_reset_crtc(), etc.) copies the current active
+ * state of all entities affected by the update into this new
+ * &drm_atomic_commit using drm_atomic_get_plane_state(),
+ * drm_atomic_get_crtc_state(), drm_atomic_get_connector_state(), or
+ * drm_atomic_get_private_obj_state(). This new state can then be
+ * modified.
+ *
+ * At that point, &drm_atomic_commit stores three state pointers for
+ * any affected entity: the "old" and "new" states, and
+ * state_to_destroy. The old state is the state currently active in
+ * the hardware, which is either the one initialized by reset() or a
+ * newer one if a commit has been made. The new state is the state
+ * we just allocated and we might eventually commit to the hardware.
+ * The state_to_destroy points to the state we'll eventually have to
+ * free when the drm_atomic_commit will be destroyed, and points to
+ * the new state for now since the old state is still the active
+ * state.
+ *
+ * + After the calling code populated the commit with the entities
+ * states, it updates the new states with the new values we need to
+ * commit. The new commit instance is now ready.
+ *
+ * + Then we have two branches depending on the calling code intent:
+ *
+ * - If the calling code only wants to check that the commit would
+ * work (for example because of the DRM_MODE_ATOMIC_TEST_ONLY
+ * flag). It calls drm_atomic_check_only(), which in turn checks
+ * all these states by invoking atomic_check on all affected
+ * pipeline stages.
+ *
+ * - If the calling code actually wants to trigger a commit, it
+ * calls drm_atomic_commit(). The first stage is the check
+ * mentioned above, and if the check is successful, it performs
+ * the commit. Part of the commit is a call to
+ * drm_atomic_helper_swap_state() which turns the new states into
+ * the active states. After swapping states, each object's state
+ * pointer now refers to the formerly new state. The
+ * state_to_destroy now refers to the formerly old state.
+ *
+ * + Once done, and when the last refererence to our &struct
+ * drm_atomic_commit is given up through drm_atomic_commit_put(), it
+ * calls __drm_atomic_commit_free(). In turn,
+ * __drm_atomic_commit_free() calls drm_atomic_commit_clear() that
+ * will free all state_to_destroy (ie. old states), and it finally
+ * frees &drm_atomic_commit instance.
+ *
+ * + Now, we don't have any active &drm_atomic_commit anymore, and
+ * only the entity active states remain allocated.
+ */
+
void __drm_crtc_commit_free(struct kref *kref)
{
struct drm_crtc_commit *commit =
container_of(kref, struct drm_crtc_commit, ref);


--
--
Thomas Zimmermann
Graphics Driver Developer
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH
Frankenstr. 146, 90461 Nürnberg, Germany, www.suse.com
GF: Jochen Jaser, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich, (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg)