Asking for opinions on GPIO API

Asking for opinions on GPIO API

[Christer Weinigel]

Hi,

I'm working on a small embedded computer based on the National
Semiconductor SC2200 CPU.  This CPU has a lot of GPIO pins and I'm
wondering how to design a good API to control these pins.

Right now I have a few functions looking like this:

/* read the input from the GPIO and return 1/0 */
unsigned sc2200_gpio_get(unsigned index);

/* set and clear the pin */
void sc2200_gpio_set(unsigned index);
void sc2200_gpio_clr(unsigned index);

would it be better to have a function which takes the desired state of
the pin as an argument instead?

void sc2200_gpio_set(unsigned index, unsigned state);

Second, I have a pure implementation question, right now the set
function looks like this:

void sc2200_gpio_set(unsigned index) {
        unsigned flags;
        spin_lock_irqsave(&sc2200_gpio_lock, flags);
        outl(inl(gpio_base) | (1 << (index & 31)), gpio_base);
        spin_unlock_irqrestore(&sc2200_gpio_lock, flags);
}

which is safe, but clearing the interrupts is a rather expensive
operation, so I'd like to avoid it if possible.  Is it possible to do
something like the atomic set_bit function but with outl/inl?  Are
there any tricks that can be done?  Since the SC2200 is an ix86 CPU I
can use assembly language if neccesary and at least for this design, I
know that the system is a uniprocessor system and thus I won't have to
consider possible races between two CPU's.

    /Christer