[Qemu-devel] [RFC] Machine description as data

[David Gibson]

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:57:19PM -0600, Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-02-11 at 16:31 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Markus Armbruster writes ("[Qemu-devel] [RFC] Machine description as data"):
> > > [stuff]
> > 
> > Yes, this is a good approach.  I have one question though:
> > 
> > >    Define an internal machine configuration data structure.  Needs to be
> > >    sufficiently generic to be able to support even oddball machine
> > >    types.  Make it a decorated tree, i.e. a tree of named nodes with
> > >    named properties.
> > 
> > Many real systems are not strictly tree-structured, because there are
> > hardware devices which connect via several different paths.  For
> > example, much hardware supported by OpenWRT comes with a built-in
> > bridge chip connected internally to a hidden ethernet card; a tape
> > library would have one interface for the robot and a bunch of SCSI
> > tapereaders; etc.
> 
> I'm not sure these are great examples, since there still a clear
> hierarchy here (e.g. the ethernet card is "behind" the bridge chip).
> Also, there is already established practice for representing SoC devices
> (found in many embedded PowerPC processors): see arch/powerpc/boot/dts.
> 
> However, what *is* a good example would be the interrupt hierarchy,
> which can be totally separate from the address/data hierarchy.
> 
> The device tree is about *devices*, not interfaces. Each node (device)
> can mark itself as implementing multiple interfaces, which is what the
> "compatible" property is about.
> 
> > When an emulation of such a device starts up, it will want to bind to
> > several parents.  How will you represent this ?
> 
> There is established design for representing the interrupt hierarchy in
> IEEE1275, using explicit "interrupt-parent" properties to create the
> interrupt tree.

Note that despite "interrupt tree" being the normal terminology, it's
actually a DAG, which is Hollis' point.

-- 
David Gibson			| I'll have my music baroque, and my code
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				| _way_ _around_!
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