[PATCH 1/3] binman: Allow to define custom arguments

[Simon Glass]

Hi Jan,

On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 at 16:42, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com> wrote:
>
> On 15.06.23 13:46, Jan Kiszka wrote:
> > On 15.06.23 13:38, Simon Glass wrote:
> >> Hi Jan,
> >>
> >> On Thu, 15 Jun 2023 at 12:21, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On 15.06.23 13:19, Simon Glass wrote:
> >>>> Hi Jan,
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, 15 Jun 2023 at 12:09, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 15.06.23 12:55, Simon Glass wrote:
> >>>>>> Hi Jan,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Thu, 15 Jun 2023 at 11:26, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On 12.06.23 23:17, Simon Glass wrote:
> >>>>>>>> Hi Jan,
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 at 15:39, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> From: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Introduce BINMAN_EXTRA_ARGS that can be set per board, e.g., to inject
> >>>>>>>>> specific settings. Will be used by IOT2050 first to define multiple
> >>>>>>>>> of-lists.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka at siemens.com>
> >>>>>>>>> ---
> >>>>>>>>> CC: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
> >>>>>>>>> ---
> >>>>>>>>>  Makefile | 1 +
> >>>>>>>>>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I'm really not keen on this, since it means that the Makefile (or some
> >>>>>>>> vars it sets) are again involved in controlling the image generation.
> >>>>>>>> It should really all be in the binman image description / .dtsi file
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> binman does not allow me to unrole of-list inside the dts file, does it?
> >>>>>>> With such a feature, I wouldn't need any custom -a of-list-X switches
> >>>>>>> and, thus, no such EXTRA_ARGS.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by 'unrole'? It is just
> >>>>>> software, so anything should be possible.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> To use a DT sequence, I need to specify fit,ftd-list. But I can say
> >>>>>
> >>>>> fit,ftd-list = "first.dtb second.dtb"
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I rather need to go via the EntryArg indirection of the binman command line.
> >>>>
> >>>> Do you mean you would rather not use '-a CONFIG_OF_LIST'. Or are you
> >>>> wanting to filter that list based on something else?
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm afraid I am really not following this at all.
> >>>
> >>> CONFIG_OF_LIST is not working here as we have two different boards with
> >>> two different lists.
> >>
> >> But we only build one board at a time, don't we?
> >
> > No, this is about building two flash images for two different board
> > generations in the same binman run (see patch 3).
> >
> >>
> >> We could provide a way to select between different lists, but how does
> >> Makefile get access to them?
> >
> > See patch 3: known lists, now put into board config.mk.
> >
>
> Any better suggestions for this issue? Otherwise, I will have to keep
> binman args extension for now.

I've dug into this a bit. The use of #defines and macros looks to be
unnecessary, unless I am missing something.

You can do things like this:

fit_node: fit {
    // base definition of FIT
    };

the later on:

fit_node: {
#ifdef xxx
   // override a few things
   fit,fdt-list = ...
#else

#endif

There is no need to specify the properties all at once. You can update
a property later on just by referring to its node as above.

I think with this you should be above to eliminate BINMAN_EXTRA_ARGS
and all the #define stuff.

Please take a look and let me know if it doesn't make sense.

Regards,
Simon