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From:   Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@linaro.org>
Date:   Sat, 16 May 2020 11:41:30 +0200
Message-ID: <CACRpkdaJk2G8MF6UMVSc2LdFPdpm9L2hox3c-rxD6RhyMg_25Q@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] gpiolib: Document that GPIO line names are not globally unique
To:     Bartosz Golaszewski <bgolaszewski@baylibre.com>
Cc:     Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@glider.be>,
        linux-gpio <linux-gpio@vger.kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
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On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 12:43 PM Bartosz Golaszewski
<bgolaszewski@baylibre.com> wrote:
> pon., 11 maj 2020 o 12:18 Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@glider.be>
> napisa=C5=82(a):
> >
> > gpiochip_set_desc_names() no longer rejects GPIO line name collisions.
> > Hence GPIO line names are not guaranteed to be globally unique.
> > In case of multiple GPIO lines with the same name, gpio_name_to_desc()
> > will return the first match found.
(...)
> This makes me wonder whether I should do something about this in
> libgpiod? Looks to me like gpiod_chip_find_line() and the global
> gpiod_line_find() are no longer reliable and should probably return
> all lines whose names match.

Hm. You probably know how consumers of libgpiod work better than me.

The background is historical and this happens because gpiolib had a
mechanism to name lines before I even took over maintenance, and
that did not require line names to be unique. So
when I created the character device I had to face the fact.

We also had to deal with the fact that when naming lines, the
"NULL alternative" (no name on the line at all) is always a valid
fallback.

And all lines named NULL are still valid and all have the same name
so...

Yours,
Linus Walleij