Re: [PATCH] soundwire: fix initializing sysfs for same devices on different buses

[Pierre-Louis Bossart <pierre-louis.bossart@linux.intel.com>]

On 10/4/23 11:40, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2023 at 11:16:09AM -0400, Pierre-Louis Bossart wrote:
> 
>>> matching the name is fine (if you are matching it against an existing
>>> name) but expecting the name to be anything specific is not going to
>>> work as the name is dynamic and can/will change each boot.
> 
>> Not following, sorry.
> 
>> In the SoundWire context, the device name directly follows the ACPI or
>> Device Tree information, I don't really see how its name could change on
>> each boot (assuming no DSDT override or overlays of course). The
>> platform descriptors are pretty much fixed, aren't they?
> 
>> Intel and AMD make such assumptions on names for pretty much all machine
>> drivers, it's not really something new - probably 15+ years? Adding Mark
>> Brown in CC: to make sure he's aware of this thread.
> 
> FWIW DT is much less affected here since all the inter-device references
> are explicit in the DT (modulo needing to work around breakage) so we're
> not hard coding in the way ACPI so unfortunately requires.

Isn't there a contradiction between making "all inter-device references
explicit in the DT" and having a device name use an IDA, which cannot
possibly known ahead of time?

I think we keep circling on the differences between "Controller" and
"link" (aka bus). A Controller can have one or more links. A system can
have one or more controllers.

Intel platforms have one controller and 4 or more links.
QCOM platforms have one or more controllers with one link each.

I am not sure how this IDA-generated bus_id helps deal with these two
cases, since we can't really make any assumptions on how
controllers/links will be started and probed.

What we are missing is a hierarchical controller/link definition, IOW a
controller_id should be given to the master by a higher level instead of
using an IDA.