Re: [PATCH] rust: driver: let probe() return impl PinInit<Self, Error>

["Danilo Krummrich" <dakr@kernel.org>]

On Thu Oct 16, 2025 at 2:55 PM CEST, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> The driver model defines the lifetime of the private data stored in (and
> owned by) a bus device to be valid from when the driver is bound to a
> device (i.e. from successful probe()) until the driver is unbound from
> the device.
>
> This is already taken care of by the Rust implementation of the driver
> model. However, we still ask drivers to return a Result<Pin<KBox<Self>>>
> from probe().
>
> Unlike in C, where we do not have the concept of initializers, but
> rather deal with uninitialized memory, drivers can just return an
> impl PinInit<Self, Error> instead.
>
> This contributed to more clarity to the fact that a driver returns it's
> device private data in probe() and the Rust driver model owns the data,
> manages the lifetime and - considering the lifetime - provides (safe)
> accessors for the driver.
>
> Hence, let probe() functions return an impl PinInit<Self, Error> instead
> of Result<Pin<KBox<Self>>>.
>
> Signed-off-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>

Applied to driver-core-testing, thanks!