Re: About devm_platform_ioremap_resource [Was: Re: [PATCH 01/32] pwm: sun4i: convert to devm_platform_ioremap_resource]

["Uwe Kleine-König" <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>]

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Hello,

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 05:11:53PM +0100, Thierry Reding wrote:
> I think function names are always a compromise between giving you the
> gist of what the implementation does and being short enough so it
> doesn't become difficult to read or use.

Right. In my eyes if you have 

 - devm_platform_ioremap_resource
 - devm_platform_get_and_ioremap_resource
 - devm_ioremap_resource
 - devm_ioremap

(to list just a few) with the current semantics, the compromise is badly
shifted into the "short name" direction however; and that was the
motivation for this patch set. In my eyes it must be more obvious which
of these functions include devm_request_mem_region() and which don't.

And note, my patch series doesn't introduce new helpers, just renames
them to have a better name (and adds compat glue for the old names).

> One of the reasons why I dislike the addition of helpers for every
> common special case (like devm_platform_ioremap_resource()) is because
> it doesn't (always) actually make things easier for developers and/or
> maintainers. Replacing three lines of code with one is a minor
> improvement, even though there may be many callsites and therefore in
> the sum this being a fairly sizeable reduction. The flip side is that
> now we've got an extra symbol with an unwieldy name that people need
> to become familiar with, and then, like the link above shows, it doesn't
> work in all cases, so you either need to fall back to the open-coded
> version or you keep adding helpers until you've covered all cases. And
> then we end up with a bunch of helpers that you actually have to go and
> read the documentation for in order to find out which one exactly fits
> your use-case.

This is indeed a relevant point. An alternative is to make the helper
more flexible. This complicates the API, too, however, so this isn't
always gold, either.
 
> Without the helpers it's pretty simple to write, even if a little
> repetitive:
> 
>   1) get the resource you want to map
>   2) request the resource
>   3) map the resource
> 
> 2) & 3) are very commonly done together, so it makes sense to have a
> generic helper for them. If you look at the implementation, the
> devm_ioremap_request() implementation does quite a bit of things in
> addition to just requesting and remapping, and that's the reason why
> that helper makes sense.
> 
> For me personally, devm_platform_ioremap_resource() is just not adding
> enough value to justify its existence. And then we get all these other
> variants that operate on the resource name (_byname) and those which
> remap write-combined (_wc). But don't we also need a _byname_wc()
> variant for the combination? Where does it stop?

I'm on your side for the _wc stuff, looking at next-20201119:

 - devm_ioremap_resource_wc has a single user:
   devm_platform_ioremap_resource_wc
 - devm_platform_ioremap_resource_wc has a single user:
   drivers/misc/sram.c

Best regards
Uwe

-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           | Uwe Kleine-König            |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | https://www.pengutronix.de/ |

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