Re: [PATCH 01/15] drivers: phy: add generic PHY framework

[Tomasz Figa]

On Wednesday 14 of August 2013 00:19:28 Sylwester Nawrocki wrote:
> W dniu 2013-08-13 14:05, Kishon Vijay Abraham I pisze:
> > On Tuesday 13 August 2013 05:07 PM, Tomasz Figa wrote:
> >> On Tuesday 13 of August 2013 16:14:44 Kishon Vijay Abraham I wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday 31 July 2013 11:45 AM, Felipe Balbi wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:14:32AM +0530, Kishon Vijay Abraham I 
wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> IMHO we need a lookup method for PHYs, just like for clocks,
> >>>>>>>>>> regulators, PWMs or even i2c busses because there are complex
> >>>>>>>>>> cases
> >>>>>>>>>> when passing just a name using platform data will not work. I
> >>>>>>>>>> would
> >>>>>>>>>> second what Stephen said [1] and define a structure doing
> >>>>>>>>>> things
> >>>>>>>>>> in a
> >>>>>>>>>> DT-like way.
> >>>>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>>>> Example;
> >>>>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>>>> [platform code]
> >>>>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>>>> static const struct phy_lookup my_phy_lookup[] = {
> >>>>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>>>> 	PHY_LOOKUP("s3c-hsotg.0", "otg", "samsung-usbphy.1",
> >>>>>>>>>> 	"phy.2"),
> >>>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>>> The only problem here is that if *PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO* is used
> >>>>>>>>> while
> >>>>>>>>> creating the device, the ids in the device name would change
> >>>>>>>>> and
> >>>>>>>>> PHY_LOOKUP wont be useful.
> >>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>> I don't think this is a problem. All the existing lookup
> >>>>>>>> methods
> >>>>>>>> already
> >>>>>>>> use ID to identify devices (see regulators, clkdev, PWMs, i2c,
> >>>>>>>> ...). You
> >>>>>>>> can simply add a requirement that the ID must be assigned
> >>>>>>>> manually,
> >>>>>>>> without using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO to use PHY lookup.
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> And I'm saying that this idea, of using a specific name and id,
> >>>>>>> is
> >>>>>>> frought with fragility and will break in the future in various
> >>>>>>> ways
> >>>>>>> when
> >>>>>>> devices get added to systems, making these strings constantly
> >>>>>>> have
> >>>>>>> to be
> >>>>>>> kept up to date with different board configurations.
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> People, NEVER, hardcode something like an id.  The fact that
> >>>>>>> this
> >>>>>>> happens today with the clock code, doesn't make it right, it
> >>>>>>> makes
> >>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>> clock code wrong.  Others have already said that this is wrong
> >>>>>>> there
> >>>>>>> as
> >>>>>>> well, as systems change and dynamic ids get used more and more.
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> Let's not repeat the same mistakes of the past just because we
> >>>>>>> refuse to
> >>>>>>> learn from them...
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> So again, the "find a phy by a string" functions should be
> >>>>>>> removed,
> >>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>> device id should be automatically created by the phy core just
> >>>>>>> to
> >>>>>>> make
> >>>>>>> things unique in sysfs, and no driver code should _ever_ be
> >>>>>>> reliant
> >>>>>>> on
> >>>>>>> the number that is being created, and the pointer to the phy
> >>>>>>> structure
> >>>>>>> should be used everywhere instead.
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> With those types of changes, I will consider merging this
> >>>>>>> subsystem,
> >>>>>>> but
> >>>>>>> without them, sorry, I will not.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> I'll agree with Greg here, the very fact that we see people
> >>>>>> trying to
> >>>>>> add a requirement of *NOT* using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO already
> >>>>>> points
> >>>>>> to a big problem in the framework.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> The fact is that if we don't allow PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO we will
> >>>>>> end up
> >>>>>> adding similar infrastructure to the driver themselves to make
> >>>>>> sure
> >>>>>> we
> >>>>>> don't end up with duplicate names in sysfs in case we have
> >>>>>> multiple
> >>>>>> instances of the same IP in the SoC (or several of the same PCIe
> >>>>>> card).
> >>>>>> I really don't want to go back to that.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> If we are using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO, then I dont see any way we
> >>>>> can
> >>>>> give the correct binding information to the PHY framework. I think
> >>>>> we
> >>>>> can drop having this non-dt support in PHY framework? I see only
> >>>>> one
> >>>>> platform (OMAP3) going to be needing this non-dt support and we
> >>>>> can
> >>>>> use the USB PHY library for it.>
> >>>> 
> >>>> you shouldn't drop support for non-DT platform, in any case we
> >>>> lived
> >>>> without DT (and still do) for years. Gotta find a better way ;-)
> >>> 
> >>> hmm..
> >>> 
> >>> how about passing the device names of PHY in platform data of the
> >>> controller? It should be deterministic as the PHY framework assigns
> >>> its
> >>> own id and we *don't* want to add any requirement that the ID must
> >>> be
> >>> assigned manually without using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO. We can get rid
> >>> of
> >>> *phy_init_data* in the v10 patch series.
> 
> OK, so the PHY device name would have a fixed part, passed as
> platform data of the controller and a variable part appended
> by the PHY core, depending on the number of registered PHYs ?
> 
> Then same PHY names would be passed as the PHY provider driver's
> platform data ?
> 
> Then if there are 2 instances of the above (same names in platform
> data) how would be determined which PHY controller is linked to
> which PHY supplier ?
> 
> I guess you want each device instance to have different PHY device
> names already in platform data ? That might work. We probably will
> be focused mostly on DT anyway. It seem without DT we are trying
> to find some layer that would allow us to couple relevant devices
> and overcome driver core inconvenience that it provides to means
> to identify specific devices in advance. :) Your proposal sounds
> reasonable, however I might be missing some details or corner cases.
> 
> >> What about slightly altering the concept of v9 to pass a pointer to
> >> struct device instead of device name inside phy_init_data?
> 
> As Felipe said, we don't want to pass pointers in platform_data
> to/from random subsystems. We pass data, passing pointers would
> be a total mess IMHO.

Well, this is a total mess anyway... I don't really get the point of using 
PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO. The only thing that comes to my mind is that you can 
use it if you don't care about the ID and so it can be assigned 
automatically.

However my understanding of the device ID is that it was supposed to 
provide a way to identify multiple instances of identical devices in a 
reliable way, to solve problems like the one we are trying to solve 
here...

So maybe let's stop solving an already solved problem and just state that 
you need to explicitly assign device ID to use this framework?

Best regards,
Tomasz

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