[PATCH] SPI core tweaks, bugfix

This includes various updates to the SPI core:

  - Fixes a driver model refcount bug in spi_unregister_master() paths.

  - The spi_master structures now have wrappers which help keep drivers
    from needing class-level get/put for device data or for refcounts.

  - Check for a few setup errors that would cause oopsing later.

  - Docs say more about memory management.  Highlights the use of DMA-safe
    i/o buffers, and zero-initializing spi_message and such metadata.

  - Provide a simple alloc/free for spi_message and its spi_transfer;
    this is only one of the possible memory management policies.

Nothing to break code that already works.

Signed-off-by: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/spi/spi-summary b/Documentation/spi/spi-summary
index c6152d1ff2b0..761debf748e9 100644
--- a/Documentation/spi/spi-summary
+++ b/Documentation/spi/spi-summary
@@ -363,6 +363,22 @@ upper boundaries might include sysfs (especially for sensor readings),
 the input layer, ALSA, networking, MTD, the character device framework,
 or other Linux subsystems.
 
+Note that there are two types of memory your driver must manage as part
+of interacting with SPI devices.
+
+  - I/O buffers use the usual Linux rules, and must be DMA-safe.
+    You'd normally allocate them from the heap or free page pool.
+    Don't use the stack, or anything that's declared "static".
+
+  - The spi_message and spi_transfer metadata used to glue those
+    I/O buffers into a group of protocol transactions.  These can
+    be allocated anywhere it's convenient, including as part of
+    other allocate-once driver data structures.  Zero-init these.
+
+If you like, spi_message_alloc() and spi_message_free() convenience
+routines are available to allocate and zero-initialize an spi_message
+with several transfers.
+
 
 How do I write an "SPI Master Controller Driver"?
 -------------------------------------------------