Documentation: gpiolib: document new interface

gpiolib now exports a new descriptor-based interface which deprecates
the older integer-based one. This patch documents this new interface and
also takes the opportunity to brush-up the GPIO documentation a little
bit.

The new descriptor-based interface follows the same consumer/driver
model as many other kernel subsystems (e.g. clock, regulator), so its
documentation has similarly been splitted into different files.

The content of the former documentation has been reused whenever it
made sense; however, some of its content did not apply to the new
interface anymore and have this been removed. Likewise, new sections
like the mapping of GPIOs to devices have been written from scratch.

The deprecated legacy-based documentation is still available, untouched,
under Documentation/gpio/gpio-legacy.txt.

Signed-off-by: Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@linaro.org>

1 files changed, 75 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/gpio/driver.txt b/Documentation/gpio/driver.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..9da0bfa74781
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpio/driver.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+GPIO Descriptor Driver Interface
+================================
+
+This document serves as a guide for GPIO chip drivers writers. Note that it
+describes the new descriptor-based interface. For a description of the
+deprecated integer-based GPIO interface please refer to gpio-legacy.txt.
+
+Each GPIO controller driver needs to include the following header, which defines
+the structures used to define a GPIO driver:
+
+        #include <linux/gpio/driver.h>
+
+
+Internal Representation of GPIOs
+================================
+
+Inside a GPIO driver, individual GPIOs are identified by their hardware number,
+which is a unique number between 0 and n, n being the number of GPIOs managed by
+the chip. This number is purely internal: the hardware number of a particular
+GPIO descriptor is never made visible outside of the driver.
+
+On top of this internal number, each GPIO also need to have a global number in
+the integer GPIO namespace so that it can be used with the legacy GPIO
+interface. Each chip must thus have a "base" number (which can be automatically
+assigned), and for each GPIO the global number will be (base + hardware number).
+Although the integer representation is considered deprecated, it still has many
+users and thus needs to be maintained.
+
+So for example one platform could use numbers 32-159 for GPIOs, with a
+controller defining 128 GPIOs at a "base" of 32 ; while another platform uses
+numbers 0..63 with one set of GPIO controllers, 64-79 with another type of GPIO
+controller, and on one particular board 80-95 with an FPGA. The numbers need not
+be contiguous; either of those platforms could also use numbers 2000-2063 to
+identify GPIOs in a bank of I2C GPIO expanders.
+
+
+Controller Drivers: gpio_chip
+=============================
+
+In the gpiolib framework each GPIO controller is packaged as a "struct
+gpio_chip" (see linux/gpio/driver.h for its complete definition) with members
+common to each controller of that type:
+
+ - methods to establish GPIO direction
+ - methods used to access GPIO values
+ - method to return the IRQ number associated to a given GPIO
+ - flag saying whether calls to its methods may sleep
+ - optional debugfs dump method (showing extra state like pullup config)
+ - optional base number (will be automatically assigned if omitted)
+ - label for diagnostics and GPIOs mapping using platform data
+
+The code implementing a gpio_chip should support multiple instances of the
+controller, possibly using the driver model. That code will configure each
+gpio_chip and issue gpiochip_add(). Removing a GPIO controller should be rare;
+use gpiochip_remove() when it is unavoidable.
+
+Most often a gpio_chip is part of an instance-specific structure with state not
+exposed by the GPIO interfaces, such as addressing, power management, and more.
+Chips such as codecs will have complex non-GPIO state.
+
+Any debugfs dump method should normally ignore signals which haven't been
+requested as GPIOs. They can use gpiochip_is_requested(), which returns either
+NULL or the label associated with that GPIO when it was requested.
+
+Locking IRQ usage
+-----------------
+Input GPIOs can be used as IRQ signals. When this happens, a driver is requested
+to mark the GPIO as being used as an IRQ:
+
+        int gpiod_lock_as_irq(struct gpio_desc *desc)
+
+This will prevent the use of non-irq related GPIO APIs until the GPIO IRQ lock
+is released:
+
+        void gpiod_unlock_as_irq(struct gpio_desc *desc)