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Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, devel@laptop.org,
       David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>, dmk@flex.com, wmb@firmworks.com,
       hch@infradead.org, jg@laptop.org
From: Segher Boessenkool <segher@kernel.crashing.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Open Firmware device tree virtual filesystem
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:36:19 +0100
To: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
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>> Simple system tools should not need to interpret binary data in
>> order to provide access to simple structured data like this, that's
>> just stupid.
>
> I would agree with you if the data was properly typed in the first 
> place
> but it's not,

OF device tree properties are "properly typed" just fine -- it's
just that only the intended consumers of the data know what to
expect, you certainly can't derive the data structures from just
looking at the data in one instance of a property.

Put another way, if you know what you are looking for in the
device tree, you can decode a property just fine -- if you're
given a random property on the other hand, you can never get
any better than the generic property structure of "array of bytes".


Segher

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