From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Kishon Vijay Abraham I Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 05:46:53 +0000 Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/15] drivers: phy: add generic PHY framework Message-Id: <51EE15FD.2010205@ti.com> List-Id: References: <51ECDE5E.3050104@ti.com> <20130722150458.GA18181@kroah.com> In-Reply-To: <20130722150458.GA18181@kroah.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org Hi, On Monday 22 July 2013 08:34 PM, Greg KH wrote: > On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 12:55:18PM +0530, Kishon Vijay Abraham I wrote: >>> The issue (or one of the issues) in this discussion is that >>> Greg does not like the idea of using names or IDs to associate >>> PHYs with controllers, because they are too prone to >>> duplications or other errors. Pointers are more reliable. >>> >>> But pointers to what? Since the only data known to be >>> available to both the PHY driver and controller driver is the >>> platform data, the obvious answer is a pointer to platform data >>> (either for the PHY or for the controller, or maybe both). >> >> hmm.. it's not going to be simple though as the platform device for the PHY and >> controller can be created in entirely different places. e.g., in some cases the >> PHY device is a child of some mfd core device (the device will be created in >> drivers/mfd) and the controller driver (usually) is created in board file. I >> guess then we have to come up with something to share a pointer in two >> different files. > > What's wrong with using the platform_data structure that is unique to > all boards (see include/platform_data/ for examples)? Isn't that what > this structure is there for? Alright. I got some ideas from Alan Stern. I'll use it with platform_data and repost the series. Thanks Kishon