Re: [PATCH] Open Firmware device tree virtual filesystem

From: Segher Boessenkool
Date: Tue Jan 02 2007 - 07:37:35 EST


Simple system tools should not need to interpret binary data in
order to provide access to simple structured data like this, that's
just stupid.

I would agree with you if the data was properly typed in the first place
but it's not,

OF device tree properties are "properly typed" just fine -- it's
just that only the intended consumers of the data know what to
expect, you certainly can't derive the data structures from just
looking at the data in one instance of a property.

Put another way, if you know what you are looking for in the
device tree, you can decode a property just fine -- if you're
given a random property on the other hand, you can never get
any better than the generic property structure of "array of bytes".


Segher

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