Re: [PATCH] drivers/block/xsysace - replace in(out)_8/in(out)_be16/in(out)_le16 with generic iowrite(read)8/16(be)

[Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>]

On Monday 11 February 2013, Michal Simek wrote:
> Unfortunately no. Another is spi/i2c (sysace as we discuss in this
> thread), probably icap
> network drivers are ok because they are not shared.
> Timer when it is moved to clocksource(not important right now)
> xilinx gpio is using __raw IO functions which is incorrect on arm in
> connection to barriers.
> 
> But it reminds me that maybe the easiest solution is not to use endian
> accessors just use two simple macros which should work on all systems.
> 
> #define <name>_readreg(offset)          ({__raw_readl(offset); rmb(); })
> #define <name>_writereg(offset, val)    ({wmb(); __raw_writel(val, offset); })
> 
> which is probably the faster solution which add minimum additional code
> to driver and can also remove endian detection code.

I tend to disagree. You should never assume that a device is the same
endianess as the the CPU, and you should try not to use the __raw_*
accessors in device drivers either.

In particular, ARM can run both big- and little-endian even though
big-endian is rarely used, so you need to know the endianess for
the device you are talking to rather than assume that it knows
what the CPU does at the time.

	Arnd