DT case sensitivity

[Michael Ellerman]

Rob Herring <robh at kernel.org> writes:

> The default DT string handling in the kernel is node names and
> compatibles are case insensitive and property names are case sensitive
> (Sparc is the the only variation and is opposite). It seems only PPC
> (and perhaps only Power Macs?) needs to support case insensitive
> comparisons. It was probably a mistake to follow PPC for new arches
> and we should have made everything case sensitive from the start. So I
> have a few questions for the DT historians. :)
>
> What PPC systems are case insensitive? Can we limit that to certain systems?
>
> AFAICT, dtc at least (if not anything FDT based) has always been case
> sensitive at least for node and property names. I'm not sure about
> compatible strings?
>
> Anyone see potential issues with switching all platforms except PPC
> and Sparc to case sensitive comparisons?

Looking at some old device trees, on ppc we do definitely have mixed
case compatible strings, and I see a few hundred of those appear in the
kernel source. So I think for us it's too late.

But I don't see why that prevents other arches from switching to case
sensitive, I don't think it really hurts us in any way.

cheers