Re: [PATCH] spi: Add builtin_spi_driver() to avoid registration boilerplate

[Paul Gortmaker <paul.gortmaker@windriver.com>]

[Re: [PATCH] spi: Add builtin_spi_driver() to avoid registration boilerplate] On 16/12/2015 (Wed 13:23) Mark Brown wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 03:53:57PM -0500, Paul Gortmaker wrote:
> 
> > Here we use that support and extend it to SPI driver registration, so where
> > a driver is clearly non-modular and builtin-only, we can register it in a
> > similar fashion.  Existing code that is clearly non-modular can be updated
> > with the simple mapping of
> 
> >   module_spi_driver(...)  ---> builtin_spi_driver(...)
> 
> > We've essentially cloned the former to make the latter, and taken out the
> > remove/module_exit parts since those never get used in a non-modular build
> > of the code.
> 
> Why would it be sensible to have a SPI driver that can't be built as a
> module?

Looking at the existing use case - in:

  drivers/video/fbdev/mmp/panel/tpo_tj032md01bw.c

it would appear that the SPI driver is embedded within another driver
that the author decided to make non-modular.  Others that don't actually
use the module_spi_driver macro but are also non modular are drivers/mfd
wm831x-spi.c and stmpe-spi.c -- I'm guessing based on the above that you
will suggest we convert those to tristate.

At a more general level, if we have provided infrastructural helpers
like module_xyz() then it seems sensible IMHO to have the parallel
equivalent of builtin_xyz() so that we don't force non-modular code to
require an include of <module.h> to build.

Paul.
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