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Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 16:06:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Patrick Mochel <mochel@osdl.org>
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To: Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu>
cc: torvalds@transmeta.com, <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, <andre@linux-ide.org>,
       <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [patch] IDE driver model update
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> > It's the desctrutor for the device object. ->release() is the last thing 
> > called when the last reference to the device goes away. That's the only 
> > time it's called. 
> 
> ???
> 
> Details, please.  When can it happen and what normally holds that object
> pinned?

get_device()/put_device(). When struct device::refcount hits 0, it's 
cleaned up. c.f. drivers/base/core.c::put_device(). 

The bus type that the device belongs to always owns it, and could easily
be put in struct bus_type. Basically, it tells the bus that it's finally
ok to free the structure. That's not done by the driver core, since the 
struct device is (so far) always embedded in a bus-specific structure. 

Thoughts? Suggestions?

	-pat

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