Re: [PATCH v2] clocksource: exynos-mct: Register the timer for stable udelay

Doug Anderson
2014-06-19T16:01:41Z

Hi,

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 3:21 AM, Tomasz Figa <tomasz.figa@gmail.com> wrote:
>> +static struct delay_timer exynos4_delay_timer;
>> +
>> +static unsigned long exynos4_read_current_timer(void)

Note: I think this should return a cycles_t, not an unsigned long.
They're the same (right now), but probably shouldn't be (see below).

>> +{
>> +#ifdef ARM
>> + return __raw_readl(reg_base + EXYNOS4_MCT_G_CNT_L);
>> +#else /* ARM64, etc */
>> + return exynos4_frc_read(&mct_frc);
>> +#endif
>> +}
>> +
>
> No need for anything like this. Even if running on ARM64, the delay
> timer code should be able to cope with different timer widths. For
> delays, 32 bits are enough, so just always read the lower part.

I agree that the timer code should cope but it doesn't appear to. I see:

cycles_t start = get_cycles();
while ((get_cycles() - start) < cycles)
cpu_relax();

Right now cycles_t is defined as "unsigned long". If that's 64-bits
on ARM64 then this function will have problems with wraparound.

My personal vote would be to submit a patch to change "cycles_t" to
always be 32-bits. Given that 32-bits was fine for udelay() for ARM
that seems sane and simple. If someone later comes up with a super
compelling reason why we need 64-bit timers for udelay (really??) then
they can later add all the complexity needed.

Amit: can you code up such a patch and add it to the series? I know
it changes code that touches all ARM devices but I still think it's
the right thing to do and actually only really changes behavior on
ARM64.

> Also use of raw accessors in drivers is discouraged - please use
> readl_relaxed().

It doesn't seem like that should happen in the same patch. Perhaps
Amit can do a cleanup patch first that changes all instances of
__raw_readl / __raw_writel in this file, then submit his patch atop
that.

> Btw. I don't even see support for this on ARM64 in mainline, where arch
> timer is always used for delays and AFAIK this is a platform requirement.

Yeah, I'd vote for not using MCT on ARM64, but it I suppose it doesn't
hurt to keep it working.