Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 16 Jul 2014 15:34:12 +0100 | From | Sudeep Holla <> | Subject | Re: [PATCHv8 2/2] mailbox: Introduce framework for mailbox |
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On 16/07/14 15:08, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > On Wednesday 16 July 2014 18:42:22 Jassi Brar wrote: >> On 16 July 2014 18:39, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> wrote: >>> On Wednesday 16 July 2014 18:35:33 Jassi Brar wrote: >>>> On 16 July 2014 18:15, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> wrote: >>>>> On Wednesday 16 July 2014 18:07:04 Jassi Brar wrote: >>>>>> On 16 July 2014 15:46, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> wrote: >>>>>>> On Wednesday 16 July 2014 10:40:19 Sudeep Holla wrote: >>>>>>>>> + >>>>>>>>> +Required property: >>>>>>>>> +- mbox: List of phandle and mailbox channel specifier. >>>>>>>>> + >>>>>>>>> +- mbox-names: List of identifier strings for each mailbox channel >>>>>>>>> + required by the client. >>>>>>>>> + >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> IMO the mailbox names are more associated with the controller channels/ >>>>>>>> mailbox rather than the clients using it. Does it make sense to move >>>>>>>> this under controller. It also avoid each client replicating the names. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think it would be best to just make the mbox-names property optional, >>>>>>> like we have for other subsystems. >>>>>>> >>>>>> A very similar subsystem - DMAEngine also has 'dma-names' as a >>>>>> required property. >>>>>> >>>>>> If a client is assigned only 1 mbox in DT, we can do without >>>>>> mbox-names. But I am not sure what to do if a client needs two or more >>>>>> differently capable mboxes? Simply allocating in order of mbox request >>>>>> doesn't seem very robust. >>>>> >>>>> Traditionally, these things (regs, interrupts, ...) are just accessed >>>>> by index. The reason why dmaengine requires the name is that some machines >>>>> can use multiple DMA engine devices attached to the same request line, >>>>> so the dmaengine subsystem can pick any of them that has a matching >>>>> name. >>>> And also, I think, when a client needs 2 different dma channels, say >>>> for RX and TX each. The api can't assign the first channel specified >>>> in 'dmas' property to the first channel request that comes to it, >>>> unless we assume client driver always requests dma channels in the >>>> order written in its DT node. And this is the main reason I see for >>>> having mbox-names property. >>> >>> Most subsystems require passing an explicit index in this case. >>> >>>> If we make mbox-names optional, do we assume client driver must >>>> request mbox in the order specified in its DT node? >>> >>> Correct. >>> >> OK. So how about we drop mbox-names altogether and expect client >> driver to simply provide an index of the mbox needed? > > That would be fine with me, but I think a lot of people like > the idea of identifying things by name, and are used to that > from the other subsystems. > > Maybe you can leave the mbox-names property defined as 'optional' > in the generic mbox binding but remove the code in Linux? That way > we can always put it back at a later point without changing the > binding in an incompatible way. > > Individual mailbox clients can mandate specific strings.
This sounds reasonable to me.
Regards, Sudeep
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