[RFC PATCH v3 2/2] dt: add custom device creation to platform bus scan

[robherring2@gmail.com (Rob Herring)]

On 05/27/2011 07:06 AM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Thursday 26 May 2011, Rob Herring wrote:
>> On 05/26/2011 08:11 AM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>> On Wednesday 25 May 2011, Rob Herring wrote:
>>> This creates a confusing mix of match table entries: Normally,
>>> all entries in the match table are meant to identify child buses,
>>> but if I read your patch correctly, you now also need to match
>>> on the amba devices themselves, including the creation of
>>> platform devices for each child device node under an amba
>>> device.
>>>
>> We should only create devices for each matching bus and the immediate
>> children of each bus. A child device of an amba device would be
>> something like an i2c bus which we don't want to create devices for. Or
>> am I missing something?
>
> Exactly, that was my point.
>
>>> I don't think that was the intention. Maybe we need to pass
>>> two match tables into of_platform_bus_probe() instead:
>>> one to identify the buses, and another one that is used
>>> to create the actual devices.
>>>
>> That was my original thinking too, but some reason I had concluded 1
>> could get by with just 1 table. After more thought, I think you are
>> right. In fact, I broke platform device creation with this patch. I need
>> to be able to tell if no match means create a platform device (child of
>> bus) or not (child of a device).
>
> Ok.
>
>> @@ -234,18 +237,32 @@ static int of_platform_bus_create(struct
>> device_node *bus,
>>    		return 0;
>>    	}
>>
>> -	dev = of_platform_device_create(bus, NULL, parent);
>> -	if (!dev || !of_match_node(matches, bus))
>> -		return 0;
>> -
>> -	for_each_child_of_node(bus, child) {
>> -		pr_debug("   create child: %s\n", child->full_name);
>> -		rc = of_platform_bus_create(child, matches,&dev->dev, strict);
>> -		if (rc) {
>> -			of_node_put(child);
>> -			break;
>> +	id = of_match_node(bus_matches, bus);
>> +	if (id) {
>> +		dev = of_platform_device_create(bus, NULL, parent);
>> +		if (!dev)
>> +			return 0;
>> +		for_each_child_of_node(bus, child) {
>> +			pr_debug("   create child: %s\n", child->full_name);
>> +			rc = of_platform_bus_create(child, bus_matches,
>> +						    dev_matches, dev, strict);
>> +			if (rc) {
>> +				of_node_put(child);
>> +				break;
>> +			}
>>    		}
>> +		return rc;
>>    	}
>> +
>> +	id = of_match_node(dev_matches, bus);
>> +	mdata = id ? id->data : NULL;
>> +	if (id&&  mdata&&  mdata->dev_create)
>> +		dev = mdata->dev_create(bus, parent);
>> +	else
>> +		dev = of_platform_device_create(bus, NULL, parent);
>> +	if (!dev)
>> +		return 0;
>> +
>
> Yes, that looks like it should work.
>
> It still feels a bit strange, because it's not exactly how we normally
> probe devices: In all other cases, we bind a device to a driver when we
> find it, and that driver in turn scans it, and potentially creates
> child devices that it finds.
>
> What we do here is to let the platform decide how to interpret the
> data that is coming in. To make the probing more well-behaved, another
> approach would be:
>
> * Bind a platform_driver to compatible="arm,amba" (or whatever we
>    had in the binding).
>
> * In that driver, do nothing except register an amba_device as a child.
>
> This would create a somewhat deeper device hierarchy, but be still
> completely logical: you have a device that cannot be probed (identified
> simply by its register space), which can be probed internally because
> the registers actually have a meaning.

Shouldn't the hierarchy in linux reflect the h/w? It seems a bit 
pointless to me to create a device just to create another device. 
amba_bus is already a bit strange in that it is not really a bus type, 
but a certain class of peripherals.

I'd like to hear Grant's thoughts on this.

Rob