Re: [PATCH 1/3] of: base: add support to get machine compatible string

From: Sudeep Holla
Date: Wed Nov 23 2016 - 05:06:25 EST




On 23/11/16 07:49, Sekhar Nori wrote:
On Tuesday 22 November 2016 09:16 PM, Sudeep Holla wrote:
Hi Sekhar,

On 22/11/16 15:06, Sekhar Nori wrote:
Hi Sudeep,

On Tuesday 22 November 2016 04:23 PM, Sudeep Holla wrote:


On 22/11/16 10:41, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
Add a function allowing to retrieve the compatible string of the root
node of the device tree.


Rob has queued [1] and it's in -next today. You can reuse that if you
are planning to target this for v4.11 or just use open coding in your
driver for v4.10 and target this move for v4.11 to avoid cross tree
dependencies as I already mentioned in your previous thread.

I dont have your original patch in my mailbox, but I wonder if
returning a pointer to property string for a node whose reference has
already been released is safe to do? Probably not an issue for the root
node, but still feels counter-intuitive.


I am not sure if I understand the issue here. Are you referring a case
where of_root is freed ?

Yes, right, thats what I was hinting at. Since you are giving up the
reference to the device node before the function returns, the user can
be left with a dangling reference.


Yes I agree.

Also I have seen drivers today just using this pointer directly, but
it's better to copy the string(I just saw this done in one case)

Hmm, the reference is given up before the API returns, so I doubt
copying it later is any additional benefit.


True.

I suspect this is a theoretical issue though since root device node is
probably never freed.


Indeed, not sure if it's worth adding additional code to release the nod
at all call sites.

--
Regards,
Sudeep