Re: [PATCH v3 1/3] rust: clk: use the type-state pattern

[Maxime Ripard <mripard@kernel.org>]

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On Thu, Jan 08, 2026 at 11:14:37AM -0300, Daniel Almeida wrote:
> Hi Maxime :)
> 
> > 
> > I don't know the typestate pattern that well, but I wonder if we don't
> > paint ourselves into a corner by introducing it.
> > 
> > While it's pretty common to get your clock from the get go into a state,
> > and then don't modify it (like what devm_clk_get_enabled provides for
> > example), and the typestate pattern indeed works great for those, we
> 
> Minor correction, devm_clk_get_enabled is not handled by the typestate
> pattern. The next patch does include this function for convenience, but
> you get a Result<()>. The typestate pattern is used when you want more
> control.
>
> > also have a significant number of drivers that will have a finer-grained
> > control over the clock enablement for PM.
> > 
> > For example, it's quite typical to have (at least) one clock for the bus
> > interface that drives the register, and one that drives the main
> > component logic. The former needs to be enabled only when you're
> > accessing the registers (and can be abstracted with
> > regmap_mmio_attach_clk for example), and the latter needs to be enabled
> > only when the device actually starts operating.
> > 
> > You have a similar thing for the prepare vs enable thing. The difference
> > between the two is that enable can be called into atomic context but
> > prepare can't.
> > 
> > So for drivers that would care about this, you would create your device
> > with an unprepared clock, and then at various times during the driver
> > lifetime, you would mutate that state.
> > 
> > AFAIU, encoding the state of the clock into the Clk type (and thus
> > forcing the structure that holds it) prevents that mutation. If not, we
> > should make it clearer (by expanding the doc maybe?) how such a pattern
> > can be supported.
> > 
> > Maxime
> 
> IIUC, your main point seems to be about mutating the state at runtime? This is
> possible with this code. You can just have an enum, for example:
> 
> enum MyClocks {
> 	Unprepared(Clk<Unprepared>),
>         Prepared(Clk<Prepared>),
> 	Enabled(Clk<Enabled>), 
> }
> 
> In fact, I specifically wanted to ensure that this was possible when writing
> these patches, as it’s needed by drivers. If you want to, I can cover that in
> the examples, no worries.

Yes, that would be great. I do wonder though if it wouldn't make sense
to turn it the other way around. It creates a fair share of boilerplate
for a number of drivers. Can't we keep Clk the way it is as a
lower-level type, and crate a ManagedClk (or whatever name you prefer)
that drivers can use, and would be returned by higher-level helpers, if
they so choose?

That way, we do have the typestate API for whoever wants to, without
creating too much boilerplate for everybody else.

Maxime

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