[U-Boot] [PATCH V1 1/3] phy: add phy_connect_by_mask

[Andy Fleming]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Eric Nelson
<eric.nelson at boundarydevices.com> wrote:
> On 08/20/2012 05:35 PM, Andy Fleming wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, August 20, 2012, Troy Kisky wrote:
>>
>> It's best if the driver make the reasonable assumption that its PHY
>> address
>> is known when it comes up, and let the board code, which can be aware that
>> the PHY may exist in varying locations, search for the PHY.
>
>
> A mask with a single bit set is about as specific as you can get, right?
>
> Are you asking for something more extensible, like a callback into
> board-specific code?


More like having the board code call into the driver, to tell it:
Here's where to find your PHY.


>
>
>> With that approach, the driver won't have to change when some board
>> designer makes the PHY topology even stranger, and I would support
>> a PHYLIB function to do searching much as you've specified.
>
> The primary reason for this change is that it's not only the board
> designer, but also the purchasing manager or manufacturer who can
> change the address.
>
> Since the PHY addresses are often driven by the state of LEDs on
> an ethernet connector, swapping part numbers can result in different
> PHY addresses. We run into this on our Nitrogen6X boards where
> PoE-enabled jacks result in a different PHY address from a standard jack.

Oh, I understand, fully. My argument is actually that it's even worse
than that. Imagine that there's a scenario where there's a valid PHY
at 4 AND 6, but under certain circumstances, your controller is hooked
up to 6. With the mask solution, the driver will always connect to 4
(assuming your mask includes 4 and 6). So now, to solve that, you have
to add more logic, but because the knowledge of the PHY is entirely
encoded in the ethernet driver and the board config file, there's no
way to insert logic, except in the driver.

I think that many people will find the need to search the bus, and a
mask like the one in this patch is a very good way. But the driver
shouldn't do the searching, IMO.

Andy