Re: [PATCH v1 5/5] gpiolib: cdev: Utilize more bitmap APIs

Andy Shevchenko
2023-09-27T12:17:20Z

On Wed, Sep 27, 2023 at 09:32:11AM +0800, Kent Gibson wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 08:20:07AM +0300, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
> > Currently we have a few bitmap calls that are open coded in the library
> > module. Let's convert them to use generic bitmap APIs instead.
>
> Firstly, I didn't consider using the bitmap module here as, in my mind at
> least, that is intended for bitmaps wider than 64 bits, or with variable
> width. In this case the bitmap is fixed at 64 bits, so bitops seemed more
> appropriate.
>
> And I would argue that they aren't "open coded" - they are parallelized
> to reduce the number of passes over the bitmap.
> This change serialises them, e.g. the get used to require 2 passes over
> the bitmap, it now requires 3 or 4. The set used to require 1 and now
> requires 2.
> And there are additional copies that the original doesn't require.
> So your change looks less efficient to me - unless there is direct
> hardware support for bitmap ops??
>
> Wrt the argument that the serialized form is clearer and more
> maintainable, optimised code is frequently more cryptic - as noted in
> bitmap.c itself, and this code has remained unchanged since it was merged
> 3 years ago, so the only maintenance it has required is to be more
> maintainable?? Ok then.
>
> Your patch is functionally equivalent and pass my uAPI tests, so
>
> Tested-by: Kent Gibson <warthog618@gmail.com>

Thanks for testing!

> but my preference is to leave it as is.

As Yury mentioned we need to look at bitmap APIs and make them possible to have
a compile-time optimizations. With that in mind, I would prefer bitmap APIs
over open-coded stuff which is hardly to be understood (yes, I still point
out that it takes a few hours to me, maybe because I'm stupid enough, to
get what's the heck is going one there, esp. for the == 1 case).

Yet, it opens a way to scale this in case we might have v3 ABI that let's say
allows to work with 512 GPIOs at a time. With your code it will be much harder
to achieve and see what you wrote about maintenance (in that case).

--
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko