Re: [PATCH v4 1/9] of: property: add of_graph_get_next_port()

[Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 05:11:37AM +0000, Kuninori Morimoto wrote:
> We have endpoint base functions
> 	- of_graph_get_next_device_endpoint()
> 	- of_graph_get_device_endpoint_count()
> 	- for_each_of_graph_device_endpoint()
> 
> Here, for_each_of_graph_device_endpoint() loop finds each endpoints
> 
> 	ports {
> 		port@0 {
> (1)			endpoint {...};
> 		};
> 		port@1 {
> (2)			endpoint {...};
> 		};
> 		...
> 	};
> 
> In above case, it finds endpoint as (1) -> (2) -> ...
> 
> Basically, user/driver knows which port is used for what, but not in
> all cases. For example on flexible/generic driver case, how many ports
> are used is not fixed.
> 
> For example Sound Generic Card driver which is used from many venders
> can't know how many ports are used. Because the driver is very
> flexible/generic, it is impossible to know how many ports are used,
> it depends on each vender SoC and/or its used board.
> 
> And more, the port can have multi endpoints. For example Generic Sound
> Card case, it supports many type of connection between CPU / Codec, and
> some of them uses multi endpoint in one port.
> Then, Generic Sound Card want to handle each connection via "port"
> instead of "endpoint".
> But, it is very difficult to handle each "port" via existing
> for_each_of_graph_device_endpoint(). Getting "port" via of_get_parent()
> from "endpoint" doesn't work. see below.
> 
> 	ports {
> 		port@0 {
> (1)			endpoint@0 {...};
> (2)			endpoint@1 {...};
> 		};
> 		port@1 {
> (3)			endpoint {...};
> 		};
> 		...
> 	};
> 
> In other case, we want to handle "ports" same as "port" for some reasons.
> 
> 	node {
> =>		ports@0 {
> 			port@0 { ... };
> 			port@1 { ... };
> 			...
> 		};
> =>		ports@1 {
> 			...
> 		};
> 	};

There is no schema that supports this structure. The closest thing we 
have is in-ports and out-ports in Coresight bindings.

In any case, it should be a separate patch, not buried in here.

Rob