Re: [RFC Patch] gpio: add GPIO hogging mechanism

[Benoit Parrot]

Pantelis Antoniou <pantelis.antoniou@xxxxxxxxx> wrote on Wed [2014-Oct-29 18:42:48 +0200]:
> Hi Benoit,
> 
> > On Oct 29, 2014, at 18:34 , Benoit Parrot <bparrot@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > Pantelis,
> > 
> > Thanks for the feedback.
> > 
> > Pantelis Antoniou <pantelis.antoniou@xxxxxxxxx> wrote on Wed [2014-Oct-29 10:53:44 +0200]:
> >> Hi Benoit,
> >> 
> >>> On Oct 21, 2014, at 23:09 , Benoit Parrot <bparrot@xxxxxx> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> Based on Boris Brezillion work this is a reworked patch
> >>> of his initial GPIO hogging mechanism.
> >>> This patch provides a way to initally configure specific GPIO
> >>> when the gpio controller is probe.
> >>> 
> >>> The actual DT scanning to collect the GPIO specific data is performed
> >>> as part of the gpiochip_add().
> >>> 
> >>> The purpose of this is to allows specific GPIOs to be configured
> >>> without any driver specific code.
> >>> This particularly usueful because board design are getting
> >>> increassingly complex and given SoC pins can now have upward
> >>> of 10 mux values a lot of connections are now dependent on
> >>> external IO muxes to switch various modes and combination.
> >>> 
> >>> Specific drivers should not necessarily need to be aware of
> >>> what accounts to a specific board implementation. This board level
> >>> "description" should be best kept as part of the dts file.
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> This look like itâs going to the right direction. I have a few general
> >> comments at first.
> >> 
> >> 1) It relies on dubious DT binding of having sub-nodes of the
> >> gpio device implicitly defining hogs.
> > 
> > I think in this instance the nodes are explicitly defining hogs.
> > Please clarify. What would you like to see here?
> >> 
> 
> Any subnodes are implicitly taken as hog definitions. This is not right because
> gpio controllers might have subnodes that they use for another purpose.

I think I see what you mean.
Even though "gpio-hog = <&phandle>" guarantee that only those sub-node
are going to be parsed, if a particular gpio-controller has sub-node for
some other reason then the "hog" related sub-node might be in the way.

Do you know of such an example currently in mainline I can take a look at?

> 
> >> 2) There is no way for having hogs inserted dynamically as far as I can tell, and
> >> no way to remove a hog either.
> > 
> > The original patch was allowing that but, Linus's review comment suggested this feature be 
> > part of the gpio-controller's gpiochip_add() hook only.
> > 
> 
> If itâs not possible to remove a hog, then itâs no good for my use case in which
> the gpios get exported and then removed.

I guess if we add the export feature then that could be possible.
But if I am not mistaken the hog concept was to allow gpio setting
for gpio not belonging to any particular drivers.
If you have gpio which needs to be released then would they fall in
the "own" by a driver category and which case use the exixting method? 
> 
> >> 
> >> 3) Iâm not very fond of having this being part of the gpio controller. This
> >> configuration conceptually has little to do with the gpio controller per se,
> >> it is more of a board specific thing. Why not come up with a gpio-hog driver that
> >> references GPIOs? That way with a single gpio-hog driver instance you could setup
> >> all the GPIO-hogging configuration for all GPIOs on the board, even one that
> >> lie on different GPIO controllers.
> > 
> > Again this follows Linus's review comment.
> > I agree that it prevent a centralize spot where all hog would be defined but it has the advantages of not relying on PROBE_DEFER.
> > I mean since all "gpio-hogs" would be defined in a single board dts file it would not be that hard to figure out the big picture anyways.
> > 
> 
> There wonât be a single board dts file if youâre using things like overlays.
I see, I had not consider that.

A generic board level gpio driver would be a different option I guess.

> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> Signed-off-by: Benoit Parrot <bparrot@xxxxxx>
> >>> ---
> >>> Documentation/devicetree/bindings/gpio/gpio.txt | 33 +++++++++
> >>> drivers/gpio/gpiolib-of.c                       | 99 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>> drivers/gpio/gpiolib.c                          | 81 ++++++++++++++++++++
> >>> include/linux/of_gpio.h                         | 11 +++
> >>> 4 files changed, 224 insertions(+)
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> Regards
> >> 
> >> â Pantelis
> >> 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Benoit
> 
> Regards
> 
> â Pantelis
> 

Regards,
Benoit
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