Re: [PATCH 2/2] pinctrl: stm32: fix GPIO level interrupts

[Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>]

Ben!

On Tue, Dec 12 2023 at 10:35, Ben Wolsieffer wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 08, 2023 at 09:43:21PM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 04 2023 at 15:33, Ben Wolsieffer wrote:
>> > The STM32 doesn't support GPIO level interrupts in hardware, so the
>> > driver tries to emulate them using edge interrupts, by retriggering the
>> > interrupt if necessary based on the pin state after the handler
>> > finishes.
>> >
>> > Currently, this functionality does not work because the irqchip uses
>> > handle_edge_irq(), which doesn't run the irq_eoi() or irq_unmask()
>> > callbacks after handling the interrupt. This patch fixes this by using
>> > handle_level_irq() for level interrupts, which causes irq_unmask() to be
>> > called to retrigger the interrupt.
>> 
>> This does not make any sense at all. irq_unmask() does not retrigger
>> anything. It sets the corresponding bit in the mask register, not more
>> not less.
>
> I don't think this is correct. I was referring to
> stm32_gpio_irq_unmask(), which calls stm32_gpio_irq_trigger(), which in
> turn (for level interrupts) checks the GPIO pin state and retriggers the
> interrupt if necessary.

Ah. That makes a lot more sense. Sorry that I missed that driver
detail. The changelog could mention explicitely where the retrigger
comes from. 

>> Switching to handle_level_irq() makes the following difference
>> vs. handle_edge_irq() when an interrupt is handled (ignoring the inner
>> loop):
>> 
>>       + irq_mask();
>>         irq_ack();
>>         ....
>>         handle();
>>         ....
>>       + irq_unmask();
>
> Yes, the additional call to irq_unmask() is the key difference here, as
> that callback performs the retriggering for level interrupts.

Sorry to be pedantic here. irq_unmask() is a function in the interrupt
core code which eventually ends up invoking the irqchip::irq_unmask().

>> When the interrupt is raised again after irq_ack() while the handler is
>> running, i.e. a full toggle from active to inactive and back to active
>> where the back to active transition causes the edge detector to trigger,
>> then:
>
> I don't see how this is relevant. The bug occurs with level interrupts
> in the case where there are no new transitions while the handler is
> running. For example, with a high level interrupt, if the pin is still
> high after the handler finishes, the interrupt should be immediately
> triggered again.

Ah. That's the problem you are trying to solve. Now we are getting
closer to a proper description :)

>> But in fact the regular exti driver could do the same and just handle
>> the two NVIC interrupts which need demultiplexing separately and let
>> everything else go through the hierarchy without bells and whistles.
>
> This sounds reasonable to me. It did seem strange to me that the exti
> and exti_h drivers used such different approaches, although I wasn't
> aware of the reasons behind them. I think this refactoring is out of
> scope of this bug fix though.

Sure. It just occured to me while looking at this stuff..

Care to resend with a proper explanation in the changelog?

Thanks,

        tglx