Re: [PATCH] Export ACPI _DSM provided firmware instance number and string name to sysfs

[Jesse Barnes <jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org>]

On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:24:36 -0800
<Narendra_K@Dell.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 08:02:03PM +0530, Domsch, Matt wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 08:42:39AM -0800, Narendra_K@Dell.com wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > This patch exports ACPI _DSM provided firmware instance number and
> > > string name to sysfs.
> > > 
> > > Please review -
> > 
> > There are now two different meanings for the 'index' file:
> > 
> > 1) SMBIOS-provided "type instance" value, which I've only seen in
> >    range [1..N] for N devices, monotonically stepwise increasing.
> > 
> > 2) ACPI-provided "index" value, which per spec only needs to be a
> >    "sort key", not starting at 0 or 1, and while monotonically
> >    increasing, not necessarily stepwise.  It's perfectly valid for the
> >    values to be (12, 16, 27, 29) if that's convenient for BIOS to
> >    generate.
> > 
> > Therefore, a consumer of this value (such as biosdevname) must know
> > which of the two it's dealing with, and either accept the value as-is,
> > or sort the value list.  While I suppose it could sort the value list
> > in either case, I'd prefer the ACPI value to be exposed in its own
> > file, perhaps 'acpi_index', to make this explicit rather than
> > implicit.
> > 
> > 'label' is fine for either case, with ACPI taking priority over
> > SMBIOS if both happen to be present.
> > 

Applied, thanks.

-- 
Jesse Barnes, Intel Open Source Technology Center