Documentation/devicetree/writing-schema.rst

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Writing DeviceTree Bindings in json-schema
==========================================

Devicetree bindings are written using json-schema vocabulary. Schema files are
written in a JSON compatible subset of YAML. YAML is used instead of JSON as it
considered more human readable and has some advantages such as allowing
comments (Prefixed with '#').

Schema Contents
---------------

Each schema doc is a structured json-schema which is defined by a set of
top-level properties. Generally, there is one binding defined per file. The
top-level json-schema properties used are:

$id
  A json-schema unique identifier string. The string must be a valid
  URI typically containing the binding's filename and path. For DT schema, it must
  begin with "http://devicetree.org/schemas/". The URL is used in constructing
  references to other files specified in schema "$ref" properties. A $ref values
  with a leading '/' will have the hostname prepended. A $ref value a relative
  path or filename only will be prepended with the hostname and path components
  of the current schema file's '$id' value. A URL is used even for local files,
  but there may not actually be files present at those locations.

$schema
  Indicates the meta-schema the schema file adheres to.

title
  A one line description on the contents of the binding schema.

maintainers
  A DT specific property. Contains a list of email address(es)
  for maintainers of this binding.

description
  Optional. A multi-line text block containing any detailed
  information about this binding. It should contain things such as what the block
  or device does, standards the device conforms to, and links to datasheets for
  more information.

select
  Optional. A json-schema used to match nodes for applying the
  schema. By default without 'select', nodes are matched against their possible
  compatible string values or node name. Most bindings should not need select.

 allOf
  Optional. A list of other schemas to include. This is used to
  include other schemas the binding conforms to. This may be schemas for a
  particular class of devices such as I2C or SPI controllers.

 properties
  A set of sub-schema defining all the DT properties for the
  binding. The exact schema syntax depends on whether properties are known,
  common properties (e.g. 'interrupts') or are binding/vendor specific properties.

A property can also define a child DT node with child properties defined
under it.

For more details on properties sections, see 'Property Schema' section.

patternProperties
  Optional. Similar to 'properties', but names are regex.

required
  A list of DT properties from the 'properties' section that
  must always be present.

examples
  Optional. A list of one or more DTS hunks implementing the
  binding. Note: YAML doesn't allow leading tabs, so spaces must be used instead.

Unless noted otherwise, all properties are required.

Property Schema
---------------

The 'properties' section of the schema contains all the DT properties for a
binding. Each property contains a set of constraints using json-schema
vocabulary for that property. The properties schemas are what is used for
validation of DT files.

For common properties, only additional constraints not covered by the common
binding schema need to be defined such as how many values are valid or what
possible values are valid.

Vendor specific properties will typically need more detailed schema. With the
exception of boolean properties, they should have a reference to a type in
schemas/types.yaml. A "description" property is always required.

The Devicetree schemas don't exactly match the YAML encoded DT data produced by
dtc. They are simplified to make them more compact and avoid a bunch of
boilerplate. The tools process the schema files to produce the final schema for
validation. There are currently 2 transformations the tools perform.

The default for arrays in json-schema is they are variable sized and allow more
entries than explicitly defined. This can be restricted by defining 'minItems',
'maxItems', and 'additionalItems'. However, for DeviceTree Schemas, a fixed
size is desired in most cases, so these properties are added based on the
number of entries in an 'items' list.

The YAML Devicetree format also makes all string values an array and scalar
values a matrix (in order to define groupings) even when only a single value
is present. Single entries in schemas are fixed up to match this encoding.

Testing
-------

Dependencies
~~~~~~~~~~~~

The DT schema project must be installed in order to validate the DT schema
binding documents and validate DTS files using the DT schema. The DT schema
project can be installed with pip::

    pip3 install git+https://github.com/devicetree-org/dt-schema.git@master

Several executables (dt-doc-validate, dt-mk-schema, dt-validate) will be
installed. Ensure they are in your PATH (~/.local/bin by default).

dtc must also be built with YAML output support enabled. This requires that
libyaml and its headers be installed on the host system. For some distributions
that involves installing the development package, such as:

Debian:
  apt-get install libyaml-dev
Fedora:
  dnf -y install libyaml-devel

Running checks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The DT schema binding documents must be validated using the meta-schema (the
schema for the schema) to ensure they are both valid json-schema and valid
binding schema. All of the DT binding documents can be validated using the
``dt_binding_check`` target::

    make dt_binding_check

In order to perform validation of DT source files, use the ``dtbs_check`` target::

    make dtbs_check

Note that ``dtbs_check`` will skip any binding schema files with errors. It is
necessary to use ``dt_binding_check`` to get all the validation errors in the
binding schema files.

It is possible to run both in a single command::

    make dt_binding_check dtbs_check

It is also possible to run checks with a single schema file by setting the
``DT_SCHEMA_FILES`` variable to a specific schema file.

::

    make dt_binding_check DT_SCHEMA_FILES=Documentation/devicetree/bindings/trivial-devices.yaml
    make dtbs_check DT_SCHEMA_FILES=Documentation/devicetree/bindings/trivial-devices.yaml


json-schema Resources
---------------------


`JSON-Schema Specifications <http://json-schema.org/>`_

`Using JSON Schema Book <http://usingjsonschema.com/>`_