Re: [RESEND PATCH v3 0/2] Pass resources to pci_create_bus() and fix MIPS PCI resources

[Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Deng-Cheng Zhu <dczhu@mips.com> wrote:
>> (Resending the patch set to include more arch maintainers.)
>>
>> Change the pci_create_bus() interface to pass in available resources to get them
>> settled down early. This is to avoid possible resource conflicts while doing
>> pci_scan_slot() in pci_scan_child_bus(). Note that pcibios_fixup_bus() can get
>> rid of such conflicts, but it's done AFTER scanning slots.
>>
>> In addition, MIPS PCI resources are now fixed using this new interface.
>
> Jesse, I assume these are headed for the 3.2 merge window, right?

I tried to build on these patches to convert x86 to using the new
pci_create_bus() interface, but I couldn't figure out a nice way to
handle an arbitrary number of resources.

We made pci_create_bus() take a "struct pci_bus_resource *"
(https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/8/26/88):

    struct pci_bus *pci_create_bus(struct device *parent, int bus,
			       struct pci_ops *ops, void *sysdata,
			       struct pci_bus_resource *bus_res);

Where pci_bus_resource looks like this:

    struct pci_bus_resource {
        struct list_head list;
        struct resource *res;
        unsigned int flags;
    };

Conceptually, we're passing a list of resources to pci_create_bus(),
which I think is the right thing.  But I think the best way to do that
is by passing a pointer to a struct list_head, not a pointer to a
pci_bus_resource.

If we pass a pci_bus_resource, we're basically using that as a
container for a list (as per include/linux/list.h), but it's not a
well-formed list.  Normally a list contains one list_head per element,
plus an extra list_head for the head of the list.  There's a nice
drawing on page 296 of http://lwn.net/images/pdf/LDD3/ch11.pdf.

The list built in your MIPS patch (https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/8/26/89)
consists of two pci_bus_resource structs (each with a list_head), but
there's no third list_head for the head of the list.  I think if you
tried to use list_for_each_entry() to iterate through the list, it
would not work correctly.

I'll post a slightly modified series to show what I mean.  Take a look
and see if it makes sense to you.

Bjorn