Hi ARM Linux developers,
I was thinking about refactoing low level debug functions. Before I start to write a patch, I'd like to know experts' option. In the current implementation, "addruart" gets both phys addr and virt addr (if CONFIG_MMU=y), but do we really need both? We always pick up one of them and discard the other. Moreover, we always know which one should be used before calling "addruart". The idea popped up in my mind was to split "addruart" into "addruart_phys" and "addruart_virt" and call the only appropriate one. The patch will change the caller in arch/arm/kernel/debug.S as follows: [Before] #ifdef CONFIG_MMU .macro addruart_current, rx, tmp1, tmp2 addruart \tmp1, \tmp2, \rx mrc p15, 0, \rx, c1, c0 tst \rx, #1 moveq \rx, \tmp1 movne \rx, \tmp2 .endm #else /* !CONFIG_MMU */ .macro addruart_current, rx, tmp1, tmp2 addruart \rx, \tmp1 .endm #endif /* CONFIG_MMU */ [After] .macro addruart_current, rx, tmp #ifdef CONFIG_MMU mrc p15, 0, \tmp, c1, c0 tst \tmp, #1 beq 10f addruart_virt \rx, \tmp b 11f #endif 10: addruart_phys \rx, \tmp 11: .endm The callee in each machine (arch/arm/include/debug/*.S) will be changed as follows: [Before] .macro addruart, rp, rv, tmp ldr \rp, =CONFIG_DEBUG_UART_PHYS ldr \rv, =CONFIG_DEBUG_UART_VIRT .endm [After] .macro addruart_phys, rx, tmp ldr \rx, =CONFIG_DEBUG_UART_PHYS .endm .macro addruart_virt, rx, tmp ldr \rx, =CONFIG_DEBUG_UART_VIRT .endm Pros of doing this ------------------ [1] In the current implementation, the interface of addruart is defferent depending on CONFIG_MMU. "addruart" takes three arguments for CONFIG_MMU=y, whereas it takes two for CONFIG_MMU is not set. This patch will introduce the consistency of the number of arguments. [2] We can save one scratch register. For example, arch/arm/boot/compressed/debug.S gets phys addr and virt addr (r1 = phys, r2 = virt), but r2 is not used: ENTRY(putc) addruart r1, r2, r3 waituart r3, r1 senduart r0, r1 busyuart r3, r1 mov pc, lr ENDPROC(putc) We can change this part as follows: ENTRY(putc) addruart_phys r1, r3 waituart r3, r1 senduart r0, r1 busyuart r3, r1 mov pc, lr ENDPROC(putc) If the basic idea is OK, I will take a close look. Comments are welcome. Best Regards Masahiro Yamada -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/