Re: [PATCH 2/2] iio: adc: ad9467: make iio backend optional

[David Lechner <dlechner@baylibre.com>]

On 12/16/25 9:39 AM, Tomas Melin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 16/12/2025 14:56, Nuno Sá wrote:
>> On Tue, 2025-12-16 at 11:40 +0000, Tomas Melin wrote:
>>> Not all users can or want to use the device with an iio-backend.
>>> For these users, let the driver work in standalone mode, not coupled
>>> to the backend or the services it provides.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Tomas Melin <tomas.melin@vaisala.com>
>>> ---
>>
>> Which users? The only usecases (for all the supported devices) we have require
>> the FPGA backend. So do you have a specific usecase for a specific device? If so, I would
>> prefer an explicit boolean in the chip_info struture for the device(s) we know this
>> can happen (unless you have a usecase for all :)).
> 
> This is generically for all the devices supported by the ad9467, not
> only a specific device. So it's about how this is used as part of the
> design.
> 
> This is aimed at users that do not use the ADI HDL reference backend
> with these devices, but instead have custom backends suited for their
> own needs.

If you have your own backend, why would it not use the IIO backend
framework?

I can understand if this custom backend sends the data somewhere else
besides an IIO buffer and we don't want to create the buffer for the IIO
device. But I would still think that there needs to be some sort of
communication between the IIO device and the backend.

Maybe you could explain more how this custom backend is intended to work?

> In that case, we need to be able to skip the backend registration and
> register device as a standalone iio device.
> 
> Hopefully this made the use case clearer?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tomas
> 
> 
>>
>> - Nuno Sá
>>
>