[alsa-devel] DMA engine API issue (was: [PATCH/RFC 0/5] R-Car Gen2 DMAC hardware descriptor list support)

[Russell King - ARM Linux]

On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 07:00:36PM +0200, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> Hi Russell,
> 
> On Friday 01 August 2014 15:30:20 Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> >  This sequence must occur in a timely manner as some DMA engine
> > implementations hold a lock between the prepare and submit callbacks (Dan
> > explicitly permits this as part of the API.)
> 
> That really triggers a red alarm in the part of my brain that deals with API 
> design, but I suppose it would be too difficult to change that.

Mine to, but there's not a lot which can be done about it without
changing a lot of users.

> > > The DMA_PRIVATE capability flag seems to play a role here, but it's far
> > > from being clear how that mechanism is supposed to work. This should be
> > > documented as well, and any light you could shed on this dark corner of
> > > the API would help.
> > 
> > Why do you think that DMA_PRIVATE has a bearing in the callbacks? It
> > doesn't.
> 
> Not on callbacks, but on how pending descriptors are pushed to the hardware. 
> The flag is explicitly checked in dma_issue_pending_all().

Right.  So, let me put a question to you - what do you think is the
effect of the check in dma_issue_pending_all()?

I'll give you a hint - disregard the comment at the top of the function,
because that's out of date.

> > DMA_PRIVATE is all about channel allocation as I explained yesterday, and
> > whether the channel is available for async_tx usage.
> > 
> > A channel marked DMA_PRIVATE is not available for async_tx usage at
> > any moment.  A channel without DMA_PRIVATE is available for async_tx
> > usage until it is allocated for the slave API - at which point the
> > generic DMA engine code will mark the channel with DMA_PRIVATE,
> > thereby taking it away from async_tx API usage.  When the slave API
> > frees the channel, DMA_PRIVATE will be cleared, making the channel
> > available for async_tx usage.
> > 
> > So, basically, DMA_PRIVATE set -> async_tx usage not allowed.
> > DMA_PRIVATE clear -> async_tx usage permitted.  It really is that
> > simple.
> 
> DMA_PRIVATE is a dma_device flag, not a dma_chan flag. As soon as one channel 
> is allocated by __dma_request_channel() the whole device is marked with 
> DMA_PRIVATE, making all channels private. What am I missing ?

I can't answer that - I don't know why the previous authors decided to
make it a DMA-device wide property - presumably there are DMA controllers
where this matters.

However, one thing to realise is that a dma_device is a virtual concept -
it is a set of channels which share a common set of properties.  It is not
a physical device.  It is entirely reasonable for a set of channels on a
physical device to be shared between two different dma_device instances
and handed out by the driver code as needed.

> > > Similarly, the DMA engine API is split in functions with different
> > > prefixes (mostly dmaengine_*, dma_async_*, dma_*, and various
> > > unprefixed niceties such as async_tx_ack or txd_lock. If there's a
> > > rationale for that (beyond just historical reasons) it should also
> > > be documented, otherwise a cleanup would help all the confused DMA
> > > engine users (myself included).
> > 
> > dmaengine_* are generally the interface functions to the DMA engine code,
> > which have been recently introduced to avoid the multiple levels of
> > pointer indirection having to be typed in every driver.
> > 
> > dma_async_* are the DMA engine interface functions for the async_tx API.
> > 
> > dma_* predate the dmaengine_* naming, and are probably too generic, so
> > should probably end up being renamed to dmaengine_*.
> 
> Thank you for the confirmation. I'll see if I can cook up a patch. It will 
> likely be pretty large and broad though, but I guess there's no way around it. 
> 
> > txd_* are all about the DMA engine descriptors.
> > 
> > async_tx_* are the higher level async_tx API functions.
> 
> Thank you for the information. How about the dma_async_* functions, should 
> they be renamed to dmaengine_* as well ? Or are some of them part of the 
> async_tx_* API ?

Well, these:

dma_async_device_register
dma_async_device_unregister
dma_async_tx_descriptor_init

are more DMA engine core <-> DMA engine driver interface functions than
user functions.  The remainder of the dma_async_* functions are internal
to the async_tx API.

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