Re: [PATCH v13 02/10] dt-bindings: document devicetree bindings for mux-controllers and gpio-mux

[Peter Rosin]

On 2017-04-19 11:17, Philipp Zabel wrote:
> On Tue, 2017-04-18 at 15:36 +0200, Peter Rosin wrote:
>> If I got things wrong when I skimmed whatever I came across, and if the
>> mmio register is the only mux control option in the stars, it becomes
>> less obvious... It's of course still possible to hook into the mux
>> subsystem, but the benefit is questionable. And you do get the extra
>> device tree node. You could of course also implement a mux driver
>> outside of drivers/mux and thus make use of the mux api, but it's tiny
>> and any benefit is truly small.
> 
> What I wondered mostly is whether it would be a good idea to move the
> OF-graph ports into the mux controller node, and let the video capture
> device be the consumer of the mux.
> But this wouldn't fit well with the clear split between the mux
> controller and the actual mux hardware in the mux DT bindings.

I have tried to do something similar. I think. The current
drivers/i2c/muxes/i2c-mux-gpio.c is a good candidate for the same thing
IIUC.

That dedicated driver and the general purpose i2c mux driver does pretty
much the same thing with these two DT snippets:

Dedicated i2c-mux-gpio DT snippet:

	i2c-mux {
		compatible = "i2c-mux-gpio";
		i2c-parent = <&i2c1>;

		mux-gpios = <&gpio1 22 0 &gpio1 23 0>;

		#address-cells = <1>;
		#size-cells = <0>;

		i2c@1 {
			...
		};

		i2c@3 {
			...
		};
	};

General purpose mux DT snippet:

	mux: mux-controller {
		compatible = "gpio-mux";
		#mux-control-cells = <0>;

		mux-gpios = <&gpio1 22 0 &gpio1 23 0>;
	};

	i2c-mux {
		compatible = "i2c-mux";
		i2c-parent = <&i2c1>;

		mux-controls = <&mux>;

		#address-cells = <1>;
		#size-cells = <0>;

		i2c@1 {
			...
		};

		i2c@3 {
			...
		};
	};

I would love to find a way to cleanly get the mux framework to handle
the first DT as well, and thus being able to obsolete the dedicated
i2c-mux-gpio driver. I have not figured out how to accomplish that
without abusing the driver-model to a point that it's not working.
Help with that task is dearly appreciated.

What I have stumbled on, I think, is that two drivers needs to be
instantiated from the same DT node. At the same time, I need the
mux framework to handle the current out-of-node thing with a
phandle as well, so that several mux consumers can share a common
mux controller. My understanding of these matters are apparently not
deep enough...

I think you would like a DT that looks more like the first DT
snippet but still enjoy the flexibility of the mux framework and w/o
implementing a (another) full muxing sub-sub-system like the i2c
sub-system has done. Correct?

Cheers,
peda