Re: [PATCH v3 3/6] iio: try searching for exact scan_mask

From: Jonathan Cameron
Date: Sun Sep 24 2023 - 12:10:22 EST


On Sun, 24 Sep 2023 17:07:26 +0100
Jonathan Cameron <jic23@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Sep 2023 14:17:49 +0300
> Matti Vaittinen <mazziesaccount@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > When IIO goes through the available scan masks in order to select the
> > best suiting one, it will just accept the first listed subset of channels
> > which meets the user's requirements. This works great for most of the
> > drivers as they can sort the list of channels in the order where
> > the 'least costy' channel selections come first.
> >
> > It may be that in some cases the ordering of the list of available scan
> > masks is not thoroughly considered. We can't really try outsmarting the
> > drivers by selecting the smallest supported subset - as this might not
> > be the 'least costy one' - but we can at least try searching through the
> > list to see if we have an exactly matching mask. It should be sane
> > assumption that if the device can support reading only the exact
> > channels user is interested in, then this should be also the least costy
> > selection - and if it is not and optimization is important, then the
> > driver could consider omitting setting the 'available_scan_mask' and
> > doing demuxing - or just omitting the 'costy exact match' and providing
> > only the more efficient broader selection of channels.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Matti Vaittinen <mazziesaccount@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> Whilst I fully agree with the reasoning behind this, I'd rather we
> did an audit of drivers to find any that have a non logical order
> (one came up today in review) and fix them up.
>
> A quick and dirty grep didn't find it to be a common problem, at least
> partly as most users of this feature only provide one valid mask.
> The few complex corners I found appear to be fine with the expected
> shortest sequences first.
>
> Defending against driver bugs is losing game if it makes the core
> code more complex to follow by changing stuff in non debug paths.
> One option might be to add a trivial check at iio_device_register()
> that we don't have scan modes that are subsets of modes earlier in the list.
> These lists are fairly short so should be cheap to run.
>
> That would incorporate ensuring exact matches come earlier by default.

BTW I'd have sent these as a separate series as there is potential that
this will distract from or slow down the driver + not all the CC list
will care about this core cleanup.

Jonathan

>
> Jonathan
>
>
> > ---
> > drivers/iio/industrialio-buffer.c | 25 +++++++++++++++++++------
> > 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/drivers/iio/industrialio-buffer.c b/drivers/iio/industrialio-buffer.c
> > index 176d31d9f9d8..e97396623373 100644
> > --- a/drivers/iio/industrialio-buffer.c
> > +++ b/drivers/iio/industrialio-buffer.c
> > @@ -411,19 +411,32 @@ static const unsigned long *iio_scan_mask_match(const unsigned long *av_masks,
> > const unsigned long *mask,
> > bool strict)
> > {
> > + const unsigned long *first_subset = NULL;
> > +
> > if (bitmap_empty(mask, masklength))
> > return NULL;
> > - while (*av_masks) {
> > - if (strict) {
> > +
> > + if (strict) {
> > + while (*av_masks) {
> > if (bitmap_equal(mask, av_masks, masklength))
> > return av_masks;
> > - } else {
> > - if (bitmap_subset(mask, av_masks, masklength))
> > - return av_masks;
> > +
> > + av_masks += BITS_TO_LONGS(masklength);
> > }
> > +
> > + return NULL;
> > + }
> > + while (*av_masks) {
> > + if (bitmap_equal(mask, av_masks, masklength))
> > + return av_masks;
> > +
> > + if (!first_subset && bitmap_subset(mask, av_masks, masklength))
> > + first_subset = av_masks;
> > +
> > av_masks += BITS_TO_LONGS(masklength);
> > }
> > - return NULL;
> > +
> > + return first_subset;
> > }
> >
> > static bool iio_validate_scan_mask(struct iio_dev *indio_dev,
>