Re: [PATCH 1/3] of: base: add support to get machine compatible string

[Sekhar Nori <nsekhar@ti.com>]

On Tuesday 22 November 2016 09:16 PM, Sudeep Holla wrote:
> Hi Sekhar,
> 
> On 22/11/16 15:06, Sekhar Nori wrote:
>> Hi Sudeep,
>>
>> On Tuesday 22 November 2016 04:23 PM, Sudeep Holla wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22/11/16 10:41, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
>>>> Add a function allowing to retrieve the compatible string of the root
>>>> node of the device tree.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Rob has queued [1] and it's in -next today. You can reuse that if you
>>> are planning to target this for v4.11 or just use open coding in your
>>> driver for v4.10 and target this move for v4.11 to avoid cross tree
>>> dependencies as I already mentioned in your previous thread.
>>
>> I dont have your original patch in my mailbox, but I wonder if
>> returning a pointer to property string for a node whose reference has
>> already been released is safe to do? Probably not an issue for the root
>> node, but still feels counter-intuitive.
>>
> 
> I am not sure if I understand the issue here. Are you referring a case
> where of_root is freed ?

Yes, right, thats what I was hinting at. Since you are giving up the
reference to the device node before the function returns, the user can
be left with a dangling reference.

> Also I have seen drivers today just using this pointer directly, but
> it's better to copy the string(I just saw this done in one case)

Hmm, the reference is given up before the API returns, so I doubt
copying it later is any additional benefit.

I suspect this is a theoretical issue though since root device node is
probably never freed.

Thanks,
Sekhar