Re: [RFC v2 0/2] gpio: Support for shared GPIO lines on boards

[Peter Ujfalusi <peter.ujfalusi@ti.com>]

On 30/10/2019 20.49, Rob Herring wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 9:30 AM Peter Ujfalusi <peter.ujfalusi@ti.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 30/10/2019 16.17, Mark Brown wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 03:32:09PM +0200, Peter Ujfalusi wrote:
>>>> On 30/10/2019 15.12, Rob Herring wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Why can't we just add a shared flag like we have for interrupts?
>>>>> Effectively, we have that for resets too, it's just hardcoded in the
>>>>> the drivers.
>>>
>>>> This would be kind of the same thing what the
>>>> GPIOD_FLAGS_BIT_NONEXCLUSIVE does, which was a quick workaround for
>>>> fixed-regulators afaik.
>>>
>>> The theory with that was that any usage of this would need the
>>> higher level code using the GPIO to cooperate so they didn't step
>>> on each other's toes so the GPIO code should just punt to it.
>>
>> But from the client driver point of view a GPIO is still GPIO and if the
>> components are unrelated then it is hard to patch things together from
>> the top.
> 
> You can't escape a driver being aware. If a driver depends on that
> GPIO to actually be set to states the driver says, then it can't be
> guaranteed to work. For example, maybe the driver assumes the device
> is in reset state after toggling reset and doesn't work if not in
> reset state. The driver has to be aware no matter what you do in DT.

That's true for some device, but it is also true that some can not
tolerate being reset without them knowing it.

If all users of the shared GPIO have full control over it then they can
just toggle it whatever way they want. How would a regulator, codec,
amplifier would negotiate on what to do with the shared GPIO?

Another not uncommon setup is when the two components needs different level:
C1: ENABLE is high active
C2: RESET is high active

To enable C1, the GPIO should be high. To enable C2 the GPIO must be low.
In the board one of the branch of the shared GPIO needs (and have) a
logic inverter.

If they both control the same GPIO then they must have requested it with
different GPIO_ACTIVE_ since the drivers are written according to chip
spec, so C1 sets the GPIO to 1, C2 sets it to 0, the inversion for one
of them must happen in gpio core, right?

It should be possible to add pass-through mode for gpio-shared so that
all requests would propagate to the root GPIO if that's what needed for
some setups.

That way the gpio-shared would nicely handle the GPIO inversions, would
be able to handle cases to avoid unwanted reset/enable of components or
allow components to be ninja-reset.

I think it would be possible to add gpiod_is_shared(struct gpio_desc
*desc) so users can check if the GPIO is shared - it would only return
true if the gpio-shared is not in pass-through mode so they can know
that the state they see on their gpio desc is not necessary matching
with reality.
Probably another gpiod_shared_get_root_value() to fetch the root's state?

I intentionally not returning that in the driver as clients might skip a
gpio_set_value() seeing that the GPIO line is already in a state they
would want it, but that would not register their needs for the level.

- Péter

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