Merge tag 'nfsd-4.8' of git://linux-nfs.org/~bfields/linux
[deliverable/linux.git] / Documentation / devicetree / bindings / common-properties.txt
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1Common properties
2
3The ePAPR specification does not define any properties related to hardware
4byteswapping, but endianness issues show up frequently in porting Linux to
5different machine types. This document attempts to provide a consistent
6way of handling byteswapping across drivers.
7
8Optional properties:
9 - big-endian: Boolean; force big endian register accesses
10 unconditionally (e.g. ioread32be/iowrite32be). Use this if you
11 know the peripheral always needs to be accessed in BE mode.
12 - little-endian: Boolean; force little endian register accesses
13 unconditionally (e.g. readl/writel). Use this if you know the
14 peripheral always needs to be accessed in LE mode.
15 - native-endian: Boolean; always use register accesses matched to the
16 endianness of the kernel binary (e.g. LE vmlinux -> readl/writel,
17 BE vmlinux -> ioread32be/iowrite32be). In this case no byteswaps
18 will ever be performed. Use this if the hardware "self-adjusts"
19 register endianness based on the CPU's configured endianness.
20
21If a binding supports these properties, then the binding should also
22specify the default behavior if none of these properties are present.
23In such cases, little-endian is the preferred default, but it is not
24a requirement. The of_device_is_big_endian() and of_fdt_is_big_endian()
25helper functions do assume that little-endian is the default, because
26most existing (PCI-based) drivers implicitly default to LE by using
27readl/writel for MMIO accesses.
28
29Examples:
30Scenario 1 : CPU in LE mode & device in LE mode.
31dev: dev@40031000 {
32 compatible = "name";
33 reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
34 ...
35 native-endian;
36};
37
38Scenario 2 : CPU in LE mode & device in BE mode.
39dev: dev@40031000 {
40 compatible = "name";
41 reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
42 ...
43 big-endian;
44};
45
46Scenario 3 : CPU in BE mode & device in BE mode.
47dev: dev@40031000 {
48 compatible = "name";
49 reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
50 ...
51 native-endian;
52};
53
54Scenario 4 : CPU in BE mode & device in LE mode.
55dev: dev@40031000 {
56 compatible = "name";
57 reg = <0x40031000 0x1000>;
58 ...
59 little-endian;
60};
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