diff mbox

[PATCHv4,1/2] dt/bindings: Add the DT binding documentation for endianness

Message ID 1399601073-19278-2-git-send-email-Li.Xiubo@freescale.com
State Superseded, archived
Headers show

Commit Message

Xiubo Li May 9, 2014, 2:04 a.m. UTC
Device-Tree binding for device endianness

The endianness mode of CPU & Device scenarios:
Index    CPU       Device     Endianness properties
------------------------------------------------------------
1        LE        LE         -
2        LE        BE         'big-endian{,-*}'
3        BE        BE         -
4        BE        LE         'little-endian{,-*}'

{big,little}-endian{,-*}: these are boolean properties, if absent
meaning that the CPU and the Device are in the same endianness mode.

Signed-off-by: Xiubo Li <Li.Xiubo@freescale.com>
---
 .../devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt  | 48 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 48 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt

Comments

Mark Rutland May 9, 2014, 4:32 p.m. UTC | #1
On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 03:04:32AM +0100, Xiubo Li wrote:
> Device-Tree binding for device endianness
> 
> The endianness mode of CPU & Device scenarios:
> Index    CPU       Device     Endianness properties
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 1        LE        LE         -
> 2        LE        BE         'big-endian{,-*}'
> 3        BE        BE         -
> 4        BE        LE         'little-endian{,-*}'
> 
> {big,little}-endian{,-*}: these are boolean properties, if absent
> meaning that the CPU and the Device are in the same endianness mode.

That's not really true though. A device might usually be little-endian,
regardless of the endianness of a CPU. Some vendors may integrate it as
big-endian after a binding is added, and in the absence of a specified
endianness a driver is likely to assume LE.

I am not keen on stating in such a generic document that the device is
the same endianness as the CPU. As some CPUs can change endianness
dynamically it's meaningless to say so.

> 
> Signed-off-by: Xiubo Li <Li.Xiubo@freescale.com>
> ---
>  .../devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt  | 48 ++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 48 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000..cc5f7f8
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt
> @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
> +Device-Tree binding for device endianness
> +
> +The endianness mode of CPU & Device scenarios:
> +Index    CPU       Device     Endianness properties
> +------------------------------------------------------------
> +1        LE        LE         -
> +2        LE        BE         'big-endian{,-*}'
> +3        BE        BE         -
> +4        BE        LE         'little-endian{,-*}'
> +
> +For one device driver, which will run in different scenarios above
> +on different SoCs using the devicetree, we need one way to simplify
> +this.
> +
> +Required properties:
> +- {big,little}-endian{,-*}: these are boolean properties, if absent
> +  meaning that the CPU and the Device are in the same endianness mode.

As stated above, I disagree with this statement.

The endianness of the CPU should have nothing to do with the device
description. The DT should not consider the endianness of the CPU at all
because this can be a dynamic property of the system.  The kernel knows
which endianness the CPU is in, and in some cases the kernel will have
explicitly changed the endianness of the CPU.

All this document needs to say is that if a device may be integrated
with little-endian or big-endian registers, the preferred way to
distinguish between these cases is with a boolean big-endian or
little-endian property. Whether this is required and what the default
happens to be is entirely binding specific.

For those cases where the endianness of sub-componenets may vary (i.e. a
single regsiter may vary endianness, or a whole sub-block), then
big-endian-* and little-endian-* properties are the preferred way to
describe this.

This definitely cannot be required in general. We already have bindings
which optionally use this style of property.

Cheers,
Mark.

> +
> +Examples:
> +Scenario 1 : CPU in LE mode & device in LE mode.
> +dev: dev@40031000 {
> +	      compatible = "name";
> +	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
> +	      ...
> +};
> +
> +Scenario 2 : CPU in LE mode & device in BE mode.
> +dev: dev@40031000 {
> +	      compatible = "name";
> +	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
> +	      ...
> +	      big-endian{,-*};
> +};
> +
> +Scenario 3 : CPU in BE mode & device in BE mode.
> +dev: dev@40031000 {
> +	      compatible = "name";
> +	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
> +	      ...
> +};
> +
> +Scenario 4 : CPU in BE mode & device in LE mode.
> +dev: dev@40031000 {
> +	      compatible = "name";
> +	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
> +	      ...
> +	      little-endian{,-*};
> +};
> -- 
> 1.8.4
> 
> 
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Mark Brown May 9, 2014, 5:02 p.m. UTC | #2
On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 05:32:43PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
> On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 03:04:32AM +0100, Xiubo Li wrote:

> > {big,little}-endian{,-*}: these are boolean properties, if absent
> > meaning that the CPU and the Device are in the same endianness mode.

> That's not really true though. A device might usually be little-endian,
> regardless of the endianness of a CPU. Some vendors may integrate it as
> big-endian after a binding is added, and in the absence of a specified
> endianness a driver is likely to assume LE.

The default should be device specific rather than binding specific.
Mark Rutland May 9, 2014, 6:12 p.m. UTC | #3
On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 06:02:55PM +0100, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 05:32:43PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
> > On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 03:04:32AM +0100, Xiubo Li wrote:
> 
> > > {big,little}-endian{,-*}: these are boolean properties, if absent
> > > meaning that the CPU and the Device are in the same endianness mode.
> 
> > That's not really true though. A device might usually be little-endian,
> > regardless of the endianness of a CPU. Some vendors may integrate it as
> > big-endian after a binding is added, and in the absence of a specified
> > endianness a driver is likely to assume LE.
> 
> The default should be device specific rather than binding specific.

I'm taking binding here to mean the binding for a praticular device
rather than a class binding, so there's only a subtle distinction
between the two.

It's entirely possible that two developers independently come up with
bindings for something that is later realised to be the same device
(just integrated differently), for which they choose opposite defaults.

In that case the default is binding-specific rather than device
specific, though I would hope that in the vast majority of cases there
is only one binding per device, at which point the distinction is
meaningless.

Cheers,
Mark.
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diff mbox

Patch

diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc5f7f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/endianness/endianness.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ 
+Device-Tree binding for device endianness
+
+The endianness mode of CPU & Device scenarios:
+Index    CPU       Device     Endianness properties
+------------------------------------------------------------
+1        LE        LE         -
+2        LE        BE         'big-endian{,-*}'
+3        BE        BE         -
+4        BE        LE         'little-endian{,-*}'
+
+For one device driver, which will run in different scenarios above
+on different SoCs using the devicetree, we need one way to simplify
+this.
+
+Required properties:
+- {big,little}-endian{,-*}: these are boolean properties, if absent
+  meaning that the CPU and the Device are in the same endianness mode.
+
+Examples:
+Scenario 1 : CPU in LE mode & device in LE mode.
+dev: dev@40031000 {
+	      compatible = "name";
+	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
+	      ...
+};
+
+Scenario 2 : CPU in LE mode & device in BE mode.
+dev: dev@40031000 {
+	      compatible = "name";
+	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
+	      ...
+	      big-endian{,-*};
+};
+
+Scenario 3 : CPU in BE mode & device in BE mode.
+dev: dev@40031000 {
+	      compatible = "name";
+	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
+	      ...
+};
+
+Scenario 4 : CPU in BE mode & device in LE mode.
+dev: dev@40031000 {
+	      compatible = "name";
+	      reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
+	      ...
+	      little-endian{,-*};
+};