Re: [PATCH v11 2/6] gpiolib: allow to specify the firmware node in struct gpio_chip

[Andy Shevchenko]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 09:25:35PM +0100, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 5:15 PM Andy Shevchenko
> <andriy.shevchenko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 04:41:23PM +0100, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
> > > Software nodes allow us to represent hierarchies for device components
> > > that don't have their struct device representation yet - for instance:
> > > banks of GPIOs under a common GPIO expander. The core gpiolib core
> >
> > core .. core ?!
> >
> > > however doesn't offer any way of passing this information from the
> > > drivers.
> > >
> > > This extends struct gpio_chip with a pointer to fwnode that can be set
> > > by the driver and used to pass device properties for child nodes.
> > >
> > > This is similar to how we handle device-tree sub-nodes with
> > > CONFIG_OF_GPIO enabled.
> >
> > Not sure I understand the proposal. Can you provide couple of (simplest)
> > examples?
> >
> > And also it sounds like reinventing a wheel. What problem do you have that you
> > need to solve this way?
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > +#if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_OF_GPIO)
> > > +     if (gc->of_node && gc->fwnode) {
> > > +             pr_err("%s: tried to set both the of_node and fwnode in gpio_chip\n",
> > > +                    __func__);
> > > +             return -EINVAL;
> > > +     }
> > > +#endif /* CONFIG_OF_GPIO */
> >
> > I don't like this. It seems like a hack right now.
> >
> > Is it possible to convert all GPIO controller drivers to provide an fwnode
> > rather than doing this? (I believe in most of the drivers we can drop
> > completely the of_node assignment).
> >
> 
> Yes, it's definitely a good idea but I would be careful with just
> dropping the of_node assignments as callbacks may depend on them
> later.

GPIO library does it for us among these lines:

	struct fwnode_handle *fwnode = gc->parent ? dev_fwnode(gc->parent) : NULL;

	of_gpio_dev_init(gc, gdev); <<< HERE!
	acpi_gpio_dev_init(gc, gdev);

	/*
	 * Assign fwnode depending on the result of the previous calls,
	 * if none of them succeed, assign it to the parent's one.
	 */
	gdev->dev.fwnode = dev_fwnode(&gdev->dev) ?: fwnode;


> Also it's not just about the gpio_chip of_node assignment -
> drivers also use a bunch of OF APIs all around the place. I would
> prefer that it be done one by one and every modified driver be tested.

That's why we want to eliminate dev->fwnode explicit dereference as a first
step (see dev_fwnode() / device_set_node() APIs).

-- 
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko