Re: [PATCH 1/2] mtd: nand: BUG_ON in case of no select_chip and cmd_ctrl

[Boris Brezillon <boris.brezillon@free-electrons.com>]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:19:16 -0700
Brian Norris <computersforpeace@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:12:48PM +0200, Boris Brezillon wrote:
> > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 18:02:27 +0200
> > Richard Weinberger <richard@nod.at> wrote:  
> > > Am 19.07.2016 um 17:59 schrieb Boris Brezillon:  
> > > > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 17:44:48 +0200
> > > > Richard Weinberger <richard@nod.at> wrote:  
> > > >> Am 19.07.2016 um 17:41 schrieb Andrey Smirnov:    
> > > >>> diff --git a/drivers/mtd/nand/nand_base.c b/drivers/mtd/nand/nand_base.c
> > > >>> index ce7b2ca..57043a6 100644
> > > >>> --- a/drivers/mtd/nand/nand_base.c
> > > >>> +++ b/drivers/mtd/nand/nand_base.c
> > > >>> @@ -3128,8 +3128,10 @@ static void nand_set_defaults(struct nand_chip *chip, int busw)
> > > >>>  	if (chip->waitfunc == NULL)
> > > >>>  		chip->waitfunc = nand_wait;
> > > >>>  
> > > >>> -	if (!chip->select_chip)
> > > >>> +	if (!chip->select_chip) {
> > > >>> +		BUG_ON(!chip->cmd_ctrl);      
> > > >>
> > > >> Please don't add new BUG_ON() calls. WARN_ON() is good enough to raise the driver developer's
> > > >> attention and won't kill the machine.    
> > > > 
> > > > Not sure a BUG_ON() is worst than a NULL-pointer exception ;-).    
> > > 
> > > When this really just triggers a NULL-pointer exception, we don't need a BUG_ON or WARN_ON at
> > > all since the kernel can tell anyway what went wrong.  
> > 
> > Hm, that's not entirely true, depending on your debug options you don't
> > have all the information to guess which line triggered the NULL pointer
> > exception, and this makes it harder to debug.
> > And I agree with Andrey here, it's better to complain at registration
> > time than letting the controller register all its NAND devices and
> > generate exceptions when the NAND is really used.  
> 
> Yes, definitely better to complain at registration. But complaining
> doesn't have to be BUG_ON().
> 
> > BTW, I don't quite understand the rational behind BUG_ON() eradication.
> > I agree that they should not be used when the driver can recover from a
> > specific failure, but that's not really the case here (some NAND
> > controller drivers don't check nand_scan_tail() or nand_scan() return
> > code).  
> 
> It's really not helpful to anyone to have a single picky/buggy/whatever
> driver crash the entire system (e.g., on an early prototype board; or
> while somebody is tinkering and forgets something) when we could
> perfectly easily just fail to register the driver. There are plenty of
> other subsystems that do this, and the world hasn't caught fire yet.

Hey, I'm already convinced that properly handling error codes in all
drivers and core code is the best approach, but we should also patch
all the code that does not follow this rule and not only framework code.

> 
> And regarding the "drivers don't check ... return code": I'm pretty
> tired of that excuse. I don't want to gate any more correct error
> handling on the fact that drivers are s**t.

That's a bit unfair. I'm trying to improve things in the NAND framework
(and will keep doing so as much as I can), but last time I suggested to
patch a driver to properly handle nand_scan_tail() return code instead
of ignoring it you said it was not required [1].

You'll say that these drivers have already been used/tested by the
people who submitted them, and that they're known to work fine as is,
but keeping these old drivers in an unclean state just encourages new
comers to submit code reproducing the same mistake, so let's tackle the
problem and patch all offenders.

> 
> > The best solution would probably be to patch all those drivers and then
> > return an error when one of the mandatory hooks is missing, but in the
> > meantime I don't see any problem in adding BUG_ON() calls.  
> 
> I do.

I'm not against dropping all BUG_ON()/BUG() usage in the NAND/MTD
framework, but we should also patch all the offending drivers.

Regards,

Boris

[1]http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.mtd/66245