Re: + blackfin-on-chip-rtc-controller-driver.patch added to -mm tree

["Mike Frysinger" <vapier.adi@gmail.com>]

On 3/1/07, David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Bryan, it'd be nice to see a followup patch addressing those
> comments from Paul Mundt, especially about that code which
> will spin-forever-under-spinlock.  That spin should probably
> drop the lock then msleep(1) then restore it before retest...

i've been chatting with Paul on irc about it

> The set_alarm() method needs to enable the alarm irq if the
> "enabled" flag is set, and the read_alarm() method needs to
> report whether the alarm is enabled.

from reading other drivers and the documentation, i couldnt determine
whether this was the standard behavior or whether set_alarm simply set
the alarm time but you still needed to call the ioctl RTC_AIE_ON in
order to actual enable it

> It's unclear why you
> chose to report "pending" (irq issued but not yet acked) since
> that's uselessly transient state on non-polled hardwre.  (That
> flag definition came from EFI, a polled firmware RTC.)

because other drivers do ?  there is no documentation here that covers
what exactly the read_alarm function in the rtc_class_ops is supposed
to do which leaves it up to people looking at other drivers

rtc-sa1100.c for example:
static int sa1100_rtc_read_alarm(struct device *dev, struct rtc_wkalrm *alrm)
{
    memcpy(&alrm->time, &rtc_alarm, sizeof(struct rtc_time));
    alrm->pending = RTSR & RTSR_AL ? 1 : 0;
    return 0;
}

if someone decides what the behavior is supposed to be here, i'll
happily implement it

> Correct handling of the "enabled" flag in read_alarm() will let
> you remove a redundant seq_printf() in your proc() callback...

i dont understand this ... rtc-sh.c and rtc-sa1100.c both do a
seq_printf() for the alarm irq

> It looks to me like you're handling the time in set_alarm()
> incorrectly.  Do the conversion and test in set_alarm, not
> AIE_ON ... since set_alarm() needs to be able to include AIE_ON
> capability.

the reason for this is so that i do not have to worry about keeping
two structures in sync ... there's the common RTC representation and
then there's the funky Blackfin representation, so by delaying the
conversion until RTC_AIE_ON, i didnt have to worry about keeping these
fields in sync

> The fields tm_{wday,yday,isdst} are never used,
> but you're testing tm_yday.  If you meant to test tm_mday in
> order to distinguish the WKALM_SET and ALM_SET cases, then you
> are mishandling a wraparound case; see how rtc-omap handles
> it.  (If it's 23:00 now, an 01:00 alarm means TOMORROW.  I
> think other RTCs may goof this case too.)

this is exactly why i'm checking tm_yday ... the rtc-dev interface
sets those fields to -1 when using the WKALM ioctls and there's no
other way to distinguish this

if the wraparound case is so common, then perhaps it should be a
helper function in the generic rtc code rather than reimplementing in
every rtc driver ...

> The use of class_device conflicts with the patch series I
> recently resubmitted, see it on rtc-linux@googlegroups.com ...
> if you submit a separate patch, then maybe your Blackfin RTC
> can be merged first.

i'll take a look
-mike