Re: [PATCH 01/15] drivers: phy: add generic PHY framework

[Felipe Balbi <balbi@ti.com>]

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Hi,

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:14:32AM +0530, Kishon Vijay Abraham I wrote:
> >>>>> IMHO we need a lookup method for PHYs, just like for clocks,
> >>>>> regulators, PWMs or even i2c busses because there are complex cases
> >>>>> when passing just a name using platform data will not work. I would
> >>>>> second what Stephen said [1] and define a structure doing things in a
> >>>>> DT-like way.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Example;
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [platform code]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> static const struct phy_lookup my_phy_lookup[] = {
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 	PHY_LOOKUP("s3c-hsotg.0", "otg", "samsung-usbphy.1", "phy.2"),
> >>>>
> >>>> The only problem here is that if *PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO* is used while
> >>>> creating the device, the ids in the device name would change and
> >>>> PHY_LOOKUP wont be useful.
> >>>
> >>> I don't think this is a problem. All the existing lookup methods already 
> >>> use ID to identify devices (see regulators, clkdev, PWMs, i2c, ...). You 
> >>> can simply add a requirement that the ID must be assigned manually, 
> >>> without using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO to use PHY lookup.
> >>
> >> And I'm saying that this idea, of using a specific name and id, is
> >> frought with fragility and will break in the future in various ways when
> >> devices get added to systems, making these strings constantly have to be
> >> kept up to date with different board configurations.
> >>
> >> People, NEVER, hardcode something like an id.  The fact that this
> >> happens today with the clock code, doesn't make it right, it makes the
> >> clock code wrong.  Others have already said that this is wrong there as
> >> well, as systems change and dynamic ids get used more and more.
> >>
> >> Let's not repeat the same mistakes of the past just because we refuse to
> >> learn from them...
> >>
> >> So again, the "find a phy by a string" functions should be removed, the
> >> device id should be automatically created by the phy core just to make
> >> things unique in sysfs, and no driver code should _ever_ be reliant on
> >> the number that is being created, and the pointer to the phy structure
> >> should be used everywhere instead.
> >>
> >> With those types of changes, I will consider merging this subsystem, but
> >> without them, sorry, I will not.
> > 
> > I'll agree with Greg here, the very fact that we see people trying to
> > add a requirement of *NOT* using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO already points to a
> > big problem in the framework.
> > 
> > The fact is that if we don't allow PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO we will end up
> > adding similar infrastructure to the driver themselves to make sure we
> > don't end up with duplicate names in sysfs in case we have multiple
> > instances of the same IP in the SoC (or several of the same PCIe card).
> > I really don't want to go back to that.
> 
> If we are using PLATFORM_DEVID_AUTO, then I dont see any way we can give the
> correct binding information to the PHY framework. I think we can drop having
> this non-dt support in PHY framework? I see only one platform (OMAP3) going to
> be needing this non-dt support and we can use the USB PHY library for it.

you shouldn't drop support for non-DT platform, in any case we lived
without DT (and still do) for years. Gotta find a better way ;-)

-- 
balbi

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