[Devel] ACPICA version 20130823 released

[Devel] ACPICA version 20130823 released

[Moore, Robert]

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23 August 2013. Summary of changes for version 20130823:

This release is available at https://acpica.org/downloads


1) ACPICA kernel-resident subsystem:

Implemented support for host-installed System Control Interrupt (SCI) handlers. Certain ACPI functionality requires the host to handle raw SCIs. For example, the "SCI Doorbell" that is defined for memory power state support requires the host device driver to handle SCIs to examine if the doorbell has been activated. Multiple SCI handlers can be installed to allow for future expansion. New external interfaces are AcpiInstallSciHandler, AcpiRemoveSciHandler; see the ACPICA reference for details. Lv Zheng, Bob Moore. ACPICA BZ 1032.

Operation region support: Never locally free the handler "context" pointer. This change removes some dangerous code that attempts to free the handler context pointer in some (rare) circumstances. The owner of the handler owns this pointer and the ACPICA code should never touch it. Although not seen to be an issue in any kernel, it did show up as a problem (fault) under AcpiExec. Also, set the internal storage field for the context pointer to zero when the region is deactivated, simply for sanity. David Box. ACPICA BZ 1039.

AcpiRead: On error, do not modify the return value target location. If an error happens in the middle of a split 32/32 64-bit I/O operation, do not modify the target of the return value pointer. Makes the code consistent with the rest of ACPICA. Bjorn Helgaas.

Example Code and Data Size: These are the sizes for the OS-independent acpica.lib produced by the Microsoft Visual C++ 9.0 32-bit compiler. The debug version of the code includes the debug output trace mechanism and has a much larger code and data size.

  Current Release:
    Non-Debug Version:  96.7K Code, 27.1K Data, 123.9K Total
    Debug Version:     184.4K Code, 76.8K Data, 261.2K Total
  Previous Release:
    Non-Debug Version:  96.2K Code, 27.1K Data, 123.3K Total
    Debug Version:     185.4K Code, 77.1K Data, 262.5K Total


2) iASL Compiler/Disassembler and Tools:

AcpiDump: Implemented several new features and fixed some problems:
1) Added support to dump the RSDP, RSDT, and XSDT tables.
2) Added support for multiple table instances (SSDT, UEFI).
3) Added option to dump "customized" (overridden) tables (-c).
4) Fixed a problem where some table filenames were improperly constructed.
5) Improved some error messages, removed some unnecessary messages.

iASL: Implemented additional support for disassembly of ACPI tables that contain invocations of external control methods. The -fe<file> option allows the import of a file that specifies the external methods along with the required number of arguments for each -- allowing for the correct disassembly of the table. This is a workaround for a limitation of AML code where the disassembler often cannot determine the number of arguments required for an external control method and generates incorrect ASL code. See the iASL reference for details. ACPICA BZ 1030.

Debugger: Implemented a new command (paths) that displays the full pathnames (namepaths) and object types of all objects in the namespace. This is an alternative to the namespace command.

Debugger: Implemented a new command (sci) that invokes the SCI dispatch mechanism and any installed handlers.

iASL: Fixed a possible segfault for "too many parent prefixes" condition. This can occur if there are too many parent prefixes in a namepath (for example, ^^^^^^PCI0.ECRD). ACPICA BZ 1035.

Application OSLs: Set the return value for the PCI read functions. These functions simply return AE_OK, but should set the return value to zero also. This change implements this. ACPICA BZ 1038.

Debugger: Prevent possible command line buffer overflow. Increase the size of a couple of the debugger line buffers, and ensure that overflow cannot happen. ACPICA BZ 1037.

iASL: Changed to abort immediately on serious errors during the parsing phase. Due to the nature of ASL, there is no point in attempting to compile these types of errors, and they typically end up causing a cascade of hundreds of errors which obscure the original problem.