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Date:   Fri, 21 Jul 2023 11:40:51 +0100
From:   Daniel Golle <daniel@makrotopia.org>
To:     Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc:     Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>, Ulf Hansson <ulf.hansson@linaro.org>,
        Miquel Raynal <miquel.raynal@bootlin.com>,
        Richard Weinberger <richard@nod.at>,
        Vignesh Raghavendra <vigneshr@ti.com>,
        Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>,
        Thomas =?iso-8859-1?Q?Wei=DFschuh?= <linux@weissschuh.net>,
        Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>, Damien Le Moal <dlemoal@kernel.org>,
        Ming Lei <ming.lei@redhat.com>, Min Li <min15.li@samsung.com>,
        Christian Loehle <CLoehle@hyperstone.com>,
        Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>,
        Hannes Reinecke <hare@suse.de>,
        Jack Wang <jinpu.wang@ionos.com>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>,
        Yeqi Fu <asuk4.q@gmail.com>, Avri Altman <avri.altman@wdc.com>,
        Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>,
        Ye Bin <yebin10@huawei.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
        =?utf-8?B?UmFmYcWCIE1pxYJlY2tp?= <rafal@milecki.pl>,
        linux-block@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-mmc@vger.kernel.org, linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 6/6] block: implement NVMEM provider
Message-ID: <ZLpgs-aZVHCQooi0@makrotopia.org>
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On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 11:31:06PM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 05:02:32PM +0100, Daniel Golle wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 12:04:43AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > The layering here is exactly the wrong way around.  This block device
> > > as nvmem provide has not business sitting in the block layer and being
> > > keyed ff the gendisk registration.  Instead you should create a new
> > > nvmem backed that opens the block device as needed if it fits your
> > > OF description without any changes to the core block layer.
> > > 
> > 
> > Ok. I will use a class_interface instead.
> 
> I'm not sure a class_interface makes much sense here.  Why does the
> block layer even need to know about you using a device a nvmem provider?

It doesn't. But it has to notify the nvmem providing driver about the
addition of new block devices. This is what I'm using class_interface
for, simply to hook into .add_dev of the block_class.

> As far as I can tell your provider should layer entirely above the
> block layer and not have to be integrated with it.

My approach using class_interface doesn't require any changes to be
made to existing block code. However, it does use block_class. If
you see any other good option to implement matching off and usage of
block devices by in-kernel users, please let me know.