[U-Boot] [RFC] Review of U-Boot timer API

[Albert ARIBAUD <albert.u.boot@aribaud.net>]

Le 24/05/2011 07:43, Graeme Russ a ?crit :
> Dear Reinhard,
>
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Reinhard Meyer
> <u-boot@emk-elektronik.de>  wrote:
>> I know its futile to repeat what I suggested about 9 months ago...
>>
>> Since get_timer() is only used (to my knowledge) to break out of
>> loops that do not terminate normally because an expected event does
>> not occur, the following API would be simpler and take less time per
>> loop:
>>
>> (I use the names A and B to avoid nitpicking on real function names
>> which can be later chosen arbitrarily if this idea prevails...)
>>
>> uint timeout = A(timeout_in_ms);
>>
>> do {...} while (!B(timeout));
>>
>> OR
>>
>> for (;;) {
>>   dowhatever...
>>   if (B(timeout)) {
>>     error_handling...
>>     break;
>>   }
>> }
>>
>> Internally both functions would be rather trival:
>>
>> uint A(uint timeout_in_ms):
>>
>> return current_tick + timeout_in_ms * ticks_per_ms;
>>
>> or - for better precision if ticks_per_ms is not a whole number:
>>
>> return current_tick + (timeout_in_ms * ticks_per_second) / 1000;
>>
>> or any fractional method to more exactly calculate that equation
>> without needing a 64 bit divide.
>>
>> bool B(uint end_tick):
>>
>> a simple unsigned subtraction of end_tick minus current_tick,
>> evaluating the carry flag. Since we don't get a carry flag in C
>> a simple methods will do:
>> return ((int)(end_tick - current_tick))<  0;
>>
>
> Elegant and simple but precludes using get_timer() to perform any
> meaningful time measurement - However this can be resolved by
> doing
>
> 	start = get_current_tick();
> 	...
> 	duration = get_elapsed_ms(start);
>
> get_elapsed_ms() converts (current_tick - start) to ms. It can still be
> a common library routine which calls a HAL function get_tick_frequency()
>
>> options:
>> current_tick needs only to be uint32, to get to the largest possible timeout
>> any 64 bit tick counter can be right shifted to get a 32 bit value that
>> increments just faster than 1ms.
>>
>> features:
>> the only complicated calculation is done before the loop starts, the loop
>> itself is not made significantly slower since only a subtraction (and maybe
>> shift to scale down a high speed tick) is required.
>>
>
> But we run into problems when the tick counter is only 32-bit and the tick
> frequency very fast so we would need to extend the tick counter to 64-bit
> and have to periodically update it.
>
> Nevertheless, I think we have two very viable options :)


Not sure I still follow what the two options are -- a heads up is welcome.

However, I do like the simplicity in having a single time unit (ticks) 
for the timer API -- asuming it covers all needs -- and providing other 
time units only as helper functions.

 > Regards,
 >
 > Graeme

> Regards,
>
> Graeme

Amicalement,
-- 
Albert.