Subject: [PATCH v4 3/5] clk: dt: binding for basic multiplexer clock

From: [email-masked] (Mike Turquette)
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 16:22:19 -0700

Quoting Stephen Warren (2013-08-30 14:37:46)
> On 08/30/2013 02:33 PM, Mike Turquette wrote:
> > Quoting Kumar Gala (2013-08-30 13:02:42)
> >> On Aug 28, 2013, at 8:14 PM, Mike Turquette wrote:
> >>
> >>> Quoting Kumar Gala (2013-08-28 08:50:10)
> >>>> On Aug 22, 2013, at 12:53 AM, Mike Turquette wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Device Tree binding for the basic clock multiplexer, plus the setup
> >>>>> function to register the clock.  Based on the existing fixed-clock
> >>>>> binding.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Includes minor beautification of clk-provider.h where some whitespace is
> >>>>> added and of_fixed_factor_clock_setup is relocated to maintain a
> >>>>> consistent style.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Tero Kristo contributed helpful bug fixes to this patch.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Signed-off-by: Mike Turquette <[email-masked]>
> >>>>> Tested-by: Heiko Stuebner <[email-masked]>
> >>>>> Reviewed-by: Heiko Stuebner <[email-masked]>
> >>>>> ---
> >>>>> Changes since v3:
> >>>>> * replaced underscores with dashes in DT property names
> >>>>> * bail from of clock setup function early if of_iomap fails
> >>>>> * removed unecessary explict cast
> >>>>>
> >>>>> .../devicetree/bindings/clock/mux-clock.txt        | 79 ++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>>>> drivers/clk/clk-mux.c                              | 68 ++++++++++++++++++-
> >>>>> include/linux/clk-provider.h                       |  5 +-
> >>>>> 3 files changed, 150 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >>>>> create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/clock/mux-clock.txt
> >>>>>
> >>>>> diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/clock/mux-clock.txt b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/clock/mux-clock.txt
> >>>>> new file mode 100644
> >>>>> index 0000000..21eb3b3
> >>>>> --- /dev/null
> >>>>> +++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/clock/mux-clock.txt
> >>>>> @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
> >>>>> +Binding for simple mux clock.
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +This binding uses the common clock binding[1].  It assumes a
> >>>>> +register-mapped multiplexer with multiple input clock signals or
> >>>>> +parents, one of which can be selected as output.  This clock does not
> >>>>> +gate or adjust the parent rate via a divider or multiplier.
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +By default the "clocks" property lists the parents in the same order
> >>>>> +as they are programmed into the regster.  E.g:
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +     clocks = <&foo_clock>, <&bar_clock>, <&baz_clock>;
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +results in programming the register as follows:
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +register value               selected parent clock
> >>>>> +0                    foo_clock
> >>>>> +1                    bar_clock
> >>>>> +2                    baz_clock
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +Some clock controller IPs do not allow a value of zero to be programmed
> >>>>> +into the register, instead indexing begins at 1.  The optional property
> >>>>> +"index-starts-at-one" modified the scheme as follows:
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +register value               selected clock parent
> >>>>> +1                    foo_clock
> >>>>> +2                    bar_clock
> >>>>> +3                    baz_clock
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +Additionally an optional table of bit and parent pairs may be supplied
> >>>>> +like so:
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +     table = <&foo_clock 0x0>, <&bar_clock, 0x2>, <&baz_clock, 0x4>;
> >>>>> +
> >>>>
> >>>> I think this is going way too far for what should be in a device tree.  Why should this not just be encoded in tables in the code?
> >>>
> >>> To reduce kernel data bloat.
> >>
> >> Why is this really an issue, for systems that are concerned about kernel size, they are going to be built targeting the HW platform of choice, for one's like a server, the bloat isn't going to be significant, and if so we can look at mechanisms like __init section that would free up after boot.
> > 
> > s/bloat/churn/
> > 
> > The clock _data_ seems to always have some churn to it. Moving it out to
> > DT reduces that churn from Linux. My concern above is not about kernel
> > data size.
> 
> That sounds like the opposite of what we should be doing.
> 
> It's fine for kernel code/data to change; that's a natural part of
> development. Obviously, we should minimize churn, through thorough
> review, domain knowledge, etc.

And with the "clock mapping" style bindings we'll end up changing both
the DT binding definition and the kernel. Not great.

And I'll respond to your points below but the whole "relocate the
problem to DT" argument is simply not my main point. What I want to do
is increase the usefulness of DT by allowing register-level details into
the binding which can 

> 
> Saying that we must shove the data out into DT because it changes
> pre-supposes that we should be changing the DT!
> 
> We should strive to write the DT for a particular piece of HW once, and
> have it be a complete and accurate description of the HW.

We're always trying to do this no matter where the data resides. Having
accurate data is not a new proposal.

> That's hard
> enough to do with small amounts of simple data. Deliberately pushing
> data that's known to be hard to get right and churn a lot into DT seems
> to be destined to make most DTs contain incorrect data.

The data churn doesn't change, whether it's static data in C or nodes in
dts. And for the sane non-mapping-a-clock-to-a-number bindings there is
no cause to change the binding at all when introducing new clock data or
making corrections to the nodes in the dts.

> 
> DT-as-an-ABI works both ways; the binding definition needs to stay
> constant /and/ the data in any particular DT needs to be accurate too.

I'm not proposing changing the binding and accuracy in the dts is
implied. No one has a goal to put inaccurate data into DT.

Regards,
Mike