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Date:   Wed, 24 Aug 2022 15:55:19 +0200
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To:     Pierre-Louis Bossart <pierre-louis.bossart@linux.intel.com>
Cc:     Vinod Koul <vkoul@kernel.org>, alsa-devel@alsa-project.org,
        Bard Liao <yung-chuan.liao@linux.intel.com>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Sanyog Kale <sanyog.r.kale@intel.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/5] soundwire: sysfs: cleanup the logic for creating the
 dp0 sysfs attributes
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On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 11:46:32AM -0500, Pierre-Louis Bossart wrote:
> 
> >>>>> That should be fine, tools should just be looking for the attributes,
> >>>>> not the existance of a directory, right?
> >>>>
> >>>> The idea what that we would only expose ports that actually exist.
> >>>> That's helpful information anyone with a basic knowledge of the
> >>>> SoundWire specification would understand.
> >>>
> >>> Is "dp0" a port?  If so, why isn't it a real device?
> >>
> >> The SoundWire spec defines the concept of 'data port'. The valid ranges
> >> are 1..14, but in all existing devices the number of data ports is way
> >> smaller, typically 2 to 4. Data ports (DPn) are source or sink, and
> >> there's no firm rule that data ports needs to be contiguous.
> >>
> >> DP0 is a 'special case' where the data transport is used for control
> >> information, e.g. programming large set of registers or firmware
> >> download. DP0 is completely optional in hardware, and not handled in
> >> Linux for now.
> >>
> >> DP0 and DPn expose low-level transport registers, which define how the
> >> contents of a FIFO will be written or read from the bus. Think of it as
> >> a generalization of the concept of TDM slots, where instead of having a
> >> fixed slot per frame the slot position/repetition/runlength can be
> >> programmed.
> >>
> >> The data ports could be as simple as 1-bit PDM, or support 8ch PCM
> >> 24-bits. That's the sort of information reported in attributes.
> > 
> > Why not make them a real device like we do for USB endpoints?
> 
> I don't see what adding another layer of hierarchy would bring. In their
> simplest configuration, there are 6 registers 8-bit exposed. And the
> port registers, when present, are accessed with a plain vanilla offset.
> 
> > What uses these sysfs files today that would be confused about an empty
> > directory?
> 
> That's a good question. I am not aware of any tools making use of those
> attributes. To a large degree, they are helpful only for debug and
> support, all these read-only attributes could be moved to debugfs. That
> could be a way to simplify everyone's life....

Ok, this is why I didn't just rebase and resend.  I've now worked on
sysfs to NOT create the directory if no attributes were present.  I'll
send out this series rebased along with that commit as well which should
help with this issue.

thanks,

greg k-h