Re: [PATCH RESEND v2 1/4] mfd: intel_soc_pmic: Core driver

["Zhu, Lejun" <lejun.zhu@linux.intel.com>]

On 5/26/2014 10:51 PM, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 02:01:11PM +0800, Zhu, Lejun wrote:
>> On 5/24/2014 1:49 AM, Mark Brown wrote:
> 
>>> There should also be no need to add extra locking around regmap calls,
>>> the regmap API has locking as standard.
> 
>> Actually it also protects the pmic variable, so it won't be set to NULL
>> while there's ongoing read/write.
> 
> Righ, but there is no clear need for the pmic variable to exist in the
> first place.
>
>>> It's also not clear why this API exists at all, surely all the
>>> interaction with the device happens from the core or function drivers
>>> for the device which ought to be able to get a direct reference to the
>>> regmap anyway and only be instantiated when one is present.
> 
>> We created these names to hide the implementation of how read/write is
>> done from other platform specific patches interacting with this driver.
>> So when we change the implementation, e.g. from I2C read/write to
>> regmap, we don't have to touch all these patches.
> 
> This sort of HAL is frowned upon in the upstream kernel.

We want to do what other MFD drivers' been doing, and make it easier for
the callers. A couple of similar examples are intel_msic_reg_read() and
lp3943_read_byte(). We want to do the same with intel_soc_pmic_readb(),
and I don't think it's too odd.

Best Regards
Lejun