From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dave Martin Subject: Re: RFC: Host-endian device tree format Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:09:39 +0000 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: In-Reply-To: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: devicetree-discuss-bounces+gldd-devicetree-discuss=m.gmane.org-uLR06cmDAlY/bJ5BZ2RsiQ@public.gmane.org Errors-To: devicetree-discuss-bounces+gldd-devicetree-discuss=m.gmane.org-uLR06cmDAlY/bJ5BZ2RsiQ@public.gmane.org To: Grant Likely Cc: Nicolas Pitre , devicetree-discuss-uLR06cmDAlY/bJ5BZ2RsiQ@public.gmane.org, linux-arm-kernel-IAPFreCvJWM7uuMidbF8XUB+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org List-Id: devicetree@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Grant Likely w= rote: > On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 8:41 AM, Nicolas Pitre = wrote: >> On Wed, 19 Jan 2011, Dave Martin wrote: >>> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Grant Likely wrote: >>> > The dtb isn't so much bigendian as it is network byte order. >>> >>> (For me, "network byte order" is a euphemism ... >> unconstructive rant here>) >> >> I concur. > > meh. it's all about conventions. =A0When talking about external data, it > is far more important for everyone to agree on the same representation > than it is to tailor to each platforms preferences. =A0That said, rant > away! =A0I love a good tangent. I guess a good example of what I mean is ELF - the endianness of an ELF image is discoverable, and cross tools do exist -- but because ELF images are strongly bound to their target platform, running the image takes precedence over the simplicity of the tools: so the images are specified in such a way that they can always be host-endian for the machine they run on, without creating format ambiguities. Of course, it's stretching things rather a lot to claim that fdt parsing is performance critical ... or that ELF cross tools work well in all host/target combinations ... rather it's a niggle. So, I'm happy as-is. It was just tempting to rock the boat a bit to make sure everyone has their sea legs :) Cheers ---Dave