Re: [PATCH v3 2/9] hwmon: (core) New hwmon registration API

Jean Delvare
2016-10-07T12:32:51Z

Hi Guenter,

On Tue, 4 Oct 2016 12:37:13 -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 04, 2016 at 10:45:59AM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > I see this patch is upstream now, but I had started reviewing it and
> > maybe some of my comments are still relevant.
> >
> As always, I appreciate the feedback. I'll be happy to submit follow-up
> patches to address any concerns.
>
> > It's not meant to be a complete review, which is why I had not sent it
> > yet :-(
> >
> > Also I did not follow the first iterations of this patchset so my
> > apologies if I raise points which have already been discussed.
> >
> > May I ask if any other subsystem is already doing anything like that?
> >
> Depends what you mean with "anything like that". The API is inspired by
> the iio API and a little by the thermal API. The details are probably
> unique, though.

I meant the idea of describing the device capabilities and letting the
core code generate the device attributes (or anything else) based on
that data. The benefits are obvious, but it has a complexity and
run-time cost so I am wondering how popular this approach is.

> > FYI I gave a presentation about the hwmon device registration API
> > evolution last week at Kernel Recipes [1] in Paris and mentioned this
> > proposal.
> >
> > [1] https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2016/
> >
> > On dim., 2016-07-24 at 20:32 -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> > > Up to now, each hwmon driver has to implement its own sysfs attributes.
> > > This requires a lot of template code, and distracts from the driver's core
> > > function to read and write chip registers.
> > >
> > > To be able to reduce driver complexity, move sensor attribute handling
> > > and thermal zone registration into hwmon core. By using the new API,
> > > driver code and data size is typically reduced by 20-70%, depending
> > > on driver complexity and the number of sysfs attributes supported.
> >
> > I looked at the diffstats for the drivers you have already converted and
> > couldn't see any such huge improvement... Some drivers appear to be even
> > larger after conversion?
> >
> The above refers to code and data sizes.

You mean at the binary level?

Have you considered the case where several devices exist for the same
driver? Static attributes are shared between devices, but with the
generated ones this is no longer the case, right?

> > > (...)
> > > +static struct attribute *hwmon_genattr(struct device *dev,
> > > + const void *drvdata,
> > > + enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
> > > + u32 attr,
> > > + int index,
> > > + const char *template,
> > > + const struct hwmon_ops *ops)
> > > +{
> > > + struct hwmon_device_attribute *hattr;
> > > + struct device_attribute *dattr;
> > > + struct attribute *a;
> > > + umode_t mode;
> > > + char *name;
> > > +
> > > + /* The attribute is invisible if there is no template string */
> > > + if (!template)
> > > + return ERR_PTR(-ENOENT);
> > > +
> > > + mode = ops->is_visible(drvdata, type, attr, index);
> >
> > Any reason why you don't simply attach the provided ->is_visible to the
> > attribute group and let the driver core do the work?
> >
> Parameter are all different
> umode_t (*is_visible)(const void *drvdata, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
> u32 attr, int channel);
> vs.
> umode_t (*is_visible)(struct kobject *, struct attribute *, int);

But this is the consequence of how you implemented it, not the reason?

Now I seem to understand that delegating the check to the driver core
would make it happen later, which means you would have to instantiate
all attributes, even if some are never going to be used? So this is an
optimization?

But this prevents sharing the attributes between devices, as pointed
out above. Well, I guess you can't have it all. I don't know what is
the more important.

> > > + return ERR_PTR(-ENOENT);
> > > +
> > > + if ((mode & S_IRUGO) && !ops->read)
> > > + return ERR_PTR(-EINVAL);
> > > + if ((mode & S_IWUGO) && !ops->write)
> > > + return ERR_PTR(-EINVAL);
> > > +
> > > + if (type == hwmon_chip) {
> >
> > This needs a comment. It's not obvious what "hwmon_chip" is supposed to
> > represent. From what I understand, maybe "hwmon_unique" would be a more
> > appropriate name.
> >
> Those are meant to be for attributes which apply to the entire chip.

Not really. As you implemented it, it is meant for attributes which are
not specific to an input or output in particular. That is, attributes
which do not include a channel number. "update_interval" and
"alarms" (which I'd like to get rid of, btw) apply to the entire chip,
but "temp_reset_history" does not.

> Not sure if 'hwmon_unique' would reflect that better.
> From the documentation:
> "A virtual sensor type, used to describe attributes
> which apply to the entire chip"
>
> Do you have an idea for a better description ?

For one thing I would rename hwmon_chip_attr_templates to
hwmon_chip_attrs (or whatever, without _templates.) They are used
directly, as opposed to all other hwmon_*_attr_templates strings which
must be generated as needed.

This is the reason why the term "unique" came to my mind: the absence
of %d in the name makes this array special. If we can't find a name
that expresses that, I think a comment should be added to explain it.

As for the description in the documentation, what about:

"A virtual sensor type, used to describe attributes
which are not bound to a specific input or output"

"input or output" could be shortened as "channel" but I think spelling
it out is more explicit.

> > > + name = (char *)template;
> > > + } else {
> > > + name = devm_kzalloc(dev, strlen(template) + 16, GFP_KERNEL);
> > > + if (!name)
> > > + return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
> > > + scnprintf(name, strlen(template) + 16, template,
> > > + index + hwmon_attr_base(type));
> > > + }
> > > +
> > > + hattr = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(*hattr), GFP_KERNEL);
> > > + if (!hattr)
> > > + return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
> >
> > So basically you are doing 1 or 2 memory allocations for every
> > attribute? Looks quite bad from a memory fragmentation
> > perspective :-( Not to mention performance. Given that you have all the
> > data at hand before you start, can't you preallocate an array with the
> > right number of hattr and pick from it? That would at least solve half
> > of the problem.

FTR I took a quick look at the iio code and there seems to be something
like the idea above implemented in iio_device_register_sysfs(). But
attributes themselves as instantiated by iio_device_register_sysfs()
are still allocated individually. But hey I'm not familiar with the iio
code anyway, I'm sure you know it better than I do.

> > Something similar for string allocation may work too, although it's
> > somewhat more complex due to the variable length. But I think the
> > abituguru3 driver is doing it right, so maybe you can too.
>
> I'll look into it.

> > (...)
> > As a side note I am wondering if it would be reasonable to limit it to a
> > single group, instead of a NULL-terminated array of groups. This would
> > make the code a little more efficient.
> >
> The underlying code is all the same; hwmon_device_register_with_groups()
> also calls __hwmon_device_register(). I would prefer to keep the code as
> common as possible.

OK, that makes sense. Maybe it can be revisited when/if we manage to
remove some of the old registration methods.

> > > (...)
> > > @@ -26,6 +164,16 @@ struct device *
> > > devm_hwmon_device_register_with_groups(struct device *dev, const char *name,
> > > void *drvdata,
> > > const struct attribute_group **groups);
> > > +struct device *
> > > +hwmon_device_register_with_info(struct device *dev,
> > > + const char *name, void *drvdata,
> > > + const struct hwmon_chip_info *info,
> > > + const struct attribute_group **groups);
> > > +struct device *
> > > +devm_hwmon_device_register_with_info(struct device *dev,
> > > + const char *name, void *drvdata,
> > > + const struct hwmon_chip_info *info,
> > > + const struct attribute_group **groups);
> > >
> > > void hwmon_device_unregister(struct device *dev);
> > > void devm_hwmon_device_unregister(struct device *dev);
> >
> > This is adding a 4th and 5th way to register a hwmon device. Starts
> > being a bit messy... Do you have any plans to get rid of some of the
> > other functions to make things more consistent and efficient?
>
> Would be nice, but then someone would have to spend the time cleaning
> up the old drivers to replace the old API, and for the most part we would
> not be able to test the result. Are you sure that is worth the risk ?

What I had in mind was rather along the lines of marking the function
as __deprecated, adding a run-time notice message when it is called,
and let whoever uses these driver contribute the fix. Call me an
optimistic :-) There are 54 drivers still using
hwmon_device_register(), out of 157.

--
Jean Delvare
SUSE L3 Support