Re: [PATCH net-next v3 01/15] net: macb: drop "consistent" from alloc/free function names

[Théo Lebrun]

Hello Conor,

On Fri Jul 3, 2026 at 1:28 PM CEST, Conor Dooley wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 01, 2026 at 05:59:04PM +0200, Théo Lebrun wrote:
>> Since commit 4df95131ea80 ("net/macb: change RX path for GEM") those
>> functions have not been only allocating or freeing consistent memory
>> mappings.
>> 
>> Rename from macb_alloc_consistent() to macb_alloc() and
>>        from macb_free_consistent()  to macb_free().
>
> What does "consistent" even mean? Is it intended to be analogous to
> coherent?

That's my guess. We used to have pci_alloc_consistent(), being an alias
to dma_alloc_coherent().

This alias has been present since forever (since Git):

   git show 1da177e4c3f4:include/asm-generic/pci-dma-compat.h

The alias got removed in commit 7968778914e5 ("PCI: Remove the
deprecated "pci-dma-compat.h" API", 2022-03-09).

Thanks,

--
Théo Lebrun, Bootlin
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com