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gpio: document gpio irqchips a bit more, describe helpers

This adds some documentation about the GPIO irqchips, what types
exist etc.

Acked-by: Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@linaro.org>
Linus Walleij 11 years ago
parent
commit
90887db883
1 changed files with 59 additions and 0 deletions
  1. 59 0
      Documentation/gpio/driver.txt

+ 59 - 0
Documentation/gpio/driver.txt

@@ -73,6 +73,65 @@ The IRQ portions of the GPIO block are implemented using an irqchip, using
 the header <linux/irq.h>. So basically such a driver is utilizing two sub-
 the header <linux/irq.h>. So basically such a driver is utilizing two sub-
 systems simultaneously: gpio and irq.
 systems simultaneously: gpio and irq.
 
 
+GPIO irqchips usually fall in one of two categories:
+
+* CHAINED GPIO irqchips: these are usually the type that is embedded on
+  an SoC. This means that there is a fast IRQ handler for the GPIOs that
+  gets called in a chain from the parent IRQ handler, most typically the
+  system interrupt controller. This means the GPIO irqchip is registered
+  using irq_set_chained_handler() or the corresponding
+  gpiochip_set_chained_irqchip() helper function, and the GPIO irqchip
+  handler will be called immediately from the parent irqchip, while
+  holding the IRQs disabled. The GPIO irqchip will then end up calling
+  something like this sequence in its interrupt handler:
+
+  static irqreturn_t tc3589x_gpio_irq(int irq, void *data)
+      chained_irq_enter(...);
+      generic_handle_irq(...);
+      chained_irq_exit(...);
+
+  Chained GPIO irqchips typically can NOT set the .can_sleep flag on
+  struct gpio_chip, as everything happens directly in the callbacks.
+
+* NESTED THREADED GPIO irqchips: these are off-chip GPIO expanders and any
+  other GPIO irqchip residing on the other side of a sleeping bus. Of course
+  such drivers that need slow bus traffic to read out IRQ status and similar,
+  traffic which may in turn incur other IRQs to happen, cannot be handled
+  in a quick IRQ handler with IRQs disabled. Instead they need to spawn a
+  thread and then mask the parent IRQ line until the interrupt is handled
+  by the driver. The hallmark of this driver is to call something like
+  this in its interrupt handler:
+
+  static irqreturn_t tc3589x_gpio_irq(int irq, void *data)
+      ...
+      handle_nested_irq(irq);
+
+  The hallmark of threaded GPIO irqchips is that they set the .can_sleep
+  flag on struct gpio_chip to true, indicating that this chip may sleep
+  when accessing the GPIOs.
+
+To help out in handling the set-up and management of GPIO irqchips and the
+associated irqdomain and resource allocation callbacks, the gpiolib has
+some helpers that can be enabled by selecting the GPIOLIB_IRQCHIP Kconfig
+symbol:
+
+* gpiochip_irqchip_add(): adds an irqchip to a gpiochip. It will pass
+  the struct gpio_chip* for the chip to all IRQ callbacks, so the callbacks
+  need to embed the gpio_chip in its state container and obtain a pointer
+  to the container using container_of().
+  (See Documentation/driver-model/design-patterns.txt)
+
+* gpiochip_set_chained_irqchip(): sets up a chained irq handler for a
+  gpio_chip from a parent IRQ and passes the struct gpio_chip* as handler
+  data. (Notice handler data, since the irqchip data is likely used by the
+  parent irqchip!) This is for the chained type of chip.
+
+To use the helpers please keep the following in mind:
+
+- Make sure to assign all relevant members of the struct gpio_chip so that
+  the irqchip can initialize. E.g. .dev and .can_sleep shall be set up
+  properly.
+
 It is legal for any IRQ consumer to request an IRQ from any irqchip no matter
 It is legal for any IRQ consumer to request an IRQ from any irqchip no matter
 if that is a combined GPIO+IRQ driver. The basic premise is that gpio_chip and
 if that is a combined GPIO+IRQ driver. The basic premise is that gpio_chip and
 irq_chip are orthogonal, and offering their services independent of each
 irq_chip are orthogonal, and offering their services independent of each