]> git.karo-electronics.de Git - karo-tx-linux.git/commit
hpet: factor timer allocate from open
authorMagnus Lynch <maglyx@gmail.com>
Wed, 5 Oct 2011 00:43:16 +0000 (11:43 +1100)
committerStephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Wed, 5 Oct 2011 07:50:50 +0000 (18:50 +1100)
commit3b2699999b77af9d0078baacfa25ac06686d5c02
tree8b6cf9489263e84ddfd0eed2b294475634c5463c
parent3a71b46c756d4a2203c3383073791ff3eef914ca
hpet: factor timer allocate from open

The current implementation of the /dev/hpet driver couples opening the
device with allocating one of the (scarce) timers (aka comparators).  This
is a limitation in that the main counter may be valuable to applications
seeking a high-resolution timer who have no use for the interrupt
generating functionality of the comparators.

This patch alters the open semantics so that when the device is opened, no
timer is allocated.  Operations that depend on a timer being in context
implicitly attempt allocating a timer, to maintain backward compatibility.
 There is also an IOCTL (HPET_ALLOC_TIMER _IO) added so that the
allocation may be done explicitly.  (I prefer the explicit open then
allocate pattern but don't know how practical it would be to require all
existing code to be changed.)

/dev/hpet is accessed via mmap().  This is the only interface of /dev/hpet
that is actually used in practice.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style tweaks]
[arnd@arndb.de: fix build]
Signed-off-by: Magnus Lynch <maglyx@gmail.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: john stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de>
Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
drivers/char/hpet.c
include/linux/hpet.h