RFC: Mega rename of device tree routines from of_*() to dt_*()

[Grant Likely]

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Michael Ellerman
<michael at ellerman.id.au> wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-11-25 at 18:42 -1000, Mitch Bradley wrote:
>> On 11/25/2010 5:15 PM, Michael Ellerman wrote:
>> > On Thu, 2010-11-25 at 09:17 -0700, Grant Likely wrote:
>> >> On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 6:34 AM, Michael Ellerman
>> >> <michael at ellerman.id.au>  wrote:
>> >>> On Thu, 2010-11-25 at 01:03 +1100, Michael Ellerman wrote:
>> >>>> Hi all,
>> >>>>
>> >>>> There were some murmurings on IRC last week about renaming the of_*()
>> >>>> routines.
>> >>> ...
>> >>>> The thinking is that on many platforms that use the of_() routines
>> >>>> OpenFirmware is not involved at all, this is true even on many powerpc
>> >>>> platforms. Also for folks who don't know the OpenFirmware connection
>> >>>> it reads as "of", as in "a can of worms".
>> >>> ...
>> >>>> So I'm hoping people with either say "YES this is a great idea", or "NO
>> >>>> this is stupid".
>> >>>
>> >>> I'm still hoping, but so far it seems most people have got better things
>> >>> to do, and of those that do have an opinion the balance is slightly
>> >>> positive.
>> >>
>> >> I assume you'll be also publishing the script that you use for
>> >> generating the massive patch.  I expect that there will be a few
>> >> iterations of running the rename script to convert over all the
>> >> stragglers.
>> >
>> > Yep sure, I'll just make it less crap first.
>> >
>> >> It should also be negotiated with Linus about when this
>> >> patch should get applied.  I do NOT want to cause massive merge pain
>> >> during the merge window.
>> >
>> > Obviously.
>> >
>> >> Andrew/Linus: Before Michael proceeds too far with this rename, are
>> >> you okay with a mass rename of the device tree functions from of_* to
>> >> dt_*?  Nobody likes the ambiguous 'of_' prefix ("of?  of what?"), but
>> >> to fix it means large cross-tree patches and potential merge
>> >> conflicts.
>> >
>> > It'd also be good to hear from DaveM, sparc is the platform with the
>> > strongest link to real OF AFAIK, so the of_() names make more sense
>> > there.
>>
>>
>> One Laptop Per Child ships real Open Firmware on its x86 Linux systems,
>> of which approximately 2 million have been shipped or ordered.  An ARM
>> version, also with OFW, is in the works.
>
> OK. I don't see any code under arch/x86 or arch/arm that uses of_()
> routines though? Or is it under drivers or something?
>
>> That said, I don't particularly like the abbreviation "of" either; I
>> abbreviate Open Firmware as "OFW".
>>
>> I don't mind using "dt_" to apply to device tree things; I think it's
>> clearer than "of_".   Ideally, it would be nice to acknowledge the
>> historical connection in some way, but confusing nomenclature probably
>> is not the way to go about it.

Yes, I like the ofw_ prefix too, and briefly considered renaming to
that, but decide that dt_ was better due to the number of systems
using the device tree without real openfirmware.

However, the ofw_ prefix would make sense if any of the promtree code
is renamed.

> Cool. I think there will still be a few things that have OF in the name,
> at least for a while, and I'm sure the doco will still mention OF, so I
> don't think the connection will be lost.

Considering that pretty much all the documentation makes some
reference back to the openfirmware origins, I'm pretty sure the ofw
legacy is safe.  :-)

g.