Re: [RFC][PATCH 4/4] PM: Permit registrarion of parentless devices during system suspend

["Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@sisk.pl>]

On Monday, December 13, 2010, Alan Stern wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Dec 2010, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> 
> > From: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl>
> > 
> > The registration of a new parentless device during system suspend
> > will not lead to any complications affecting the PM core (the device
> > will be effectively seen after the subsequent resume has completed),
> > so remove the code used for detection of such events.
> 
> Actually the tests you're changing were never as strong as they should
> have been.  Drivers are supposed to avoid registering new children
> beneath a device as soon as the device has gone through the "prepare"
> stage, not just after the device is suspended.  Should there be a 
> "prepared" bitflag to help implement this stronger test?

The in_suspend flag introduced by [3/4] works like this, actually.

> In principle the same idea applies to parentless devices, since they
> can be considered children of the "system device" (a fictitious node at
> the root of the device tree).  The "system" goes into the prepared
> state before all the real devices; that's what the transition_started
> variable was all about.  It's nothing more than the "prepared" bitflag
> for the "system device".

It has never worked like this, because it was cleared as early as at the
_noirq() stage.

Hmm.  It looks like I should modify [3/4] to clear the in_suspend flag earlier
to follow the current behavior (if a device is DPM_RESUMING, registration of
new children doesn't trigger the warning).

> I guess it's okay to be lenient and not check for this.  But should we
> then change the documentation to match?  (Note that the warning won't
> be triggered if a new child is registered _as_ the parent is
> suspending.  Not to mention the possibilities for mischief when devices
> are suspended asynchronously.  But as you say, these complications
> don't affect the PM core.)

The documentation is fine, I think, as it says what people are not supposed to
do and that doesn't really change. :-)

Thanks,
Rafael