linux-kernel - RFC: inlining device register accesses

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Date:   Fri, 29 Jun 2018 16:51:04 +0200
From:   Enrico Weigelt <lkml@...ux.net>
To:     LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: RFC: inlining device register accesses

Hi folks,

I've got a weird idea, that I'd like to hear your oppinion about:

In drivers we have lots of cases, where things like register accesses
sometimes (on specific boards+cpus) *could* be done by direct memory
access, while many times we need more complex operations, like talking
to an I2C controller. Certainly, we dont wanna have lots of different
bus-specific code pathes in the drivers - same issue as why regmap
has been invented.

Maybe we could declare the actual register access in a more abstract
way (macros ? dsl ?), so under the hood different code pathes can be
generated and picked dynamically via kprobes-alike approach. If the
device happens to be directly cpu-accessible, ops for direct memory
access are inserted, otherwise appropriate function calls. Or maybe
the bpf jit somehow could be abused for that ?

--mtx

-- 
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
Free software and Linux embedded engineering
info@...ux.net -- +49-151-27565287