| ====================== |
| Legacy GPIO Interfaces |
| ====================== |
| |
| This provides an overview of GPIO access conventions on Linux. |
| |
| These calls use the gpio_* naming prefix. No other calls should use that |
| prefix, or the related __gpio_* prefix. |
| |
| |
| What is a GPIO? |
| =============== |
| A "General Purpose Input/Output" (GPIO) is a flexible software-controlled |
| digital signal. They are provided from many kinds of chip, and are familiar |
| to Linux developers working with embedded and custom hardware. Each GPIO |
| represents a bit connected to a particular pin, or "ball" on Ball Grid Array |
| (BGA) packages. Board schematics show which external hardware connects to |
| which GPIOs. Drivers can be written generically, so that board setup code |
| passes such pin configuration data to drivers. |
| |
| System-on-Chip (SOC) processors heavily rely on GPIOs. In some cases, every |
| non-dedicated pin can be configured as a GPIO; and most chips have at least |
| several dozen of them. Programmable logic devices (like FPGAs) can easily |
| provide GPIOs; multifunction chips like power managers, and audio codecs |
| often have a few such pins to help with pin scarcity on SOCs; and there are |
| also "GPIO Expander" chips that connect using the I2C or SPI serial busses. |
| Most PC southbridges have a few dozen GPIO-capable pins (with only the BIOS |
| firmware knowing how they're used). |
| |
| The exact capabilities of GPIOs vary between systems. Common options: |
| |
| - Output values are writable (high=1, low=0). Some chips also have |
| options about how that value is driven, so that for example only one |
| value might be driven ... supporting "wire-OR" and similar schemes |
| for the other value (notably, "open drain" signaling). |
| |
| - Input values are likewise readable (1, 0). Some chips support readback |
| of pins configured as "output", which is very useful in such "wire-OR" |
| cases (to support bidirectional signaling). GPIO controllers may have |
| input de-glitch/debounce logic, sometimes with software controls. |
| |
| - Inputs can often be used as IRQ signals, often edge triggered but |
| sometimes level triggered. Such IRQs may be configurable as system |
| wakeup events, to wake the system from a low power state. |
| |
| - Usually a GPIO will be configurable as either input or output, as needed |
| by different product boards; single direction ones exist too. |
| |
| - Most GPIOs can be accessed while holding spinlocks, but those accessed |
| through a serial bus normally can't. Some systems support both types. |
| |
| On a given board each GPIO is used for one specific purpose like monitoring |
| MMC/SD card insertion/removal, detecting card writeprotect status, driving |
| a LED, configuring a transceiver, bitbanging a serial bus, poking a hardware |
| watchdog, sensing a switch, and so on. |
| |
| |
| GPIO conventions |
| ================ |
| Note that this is called a "convention" because you don't need to do it this |
| way, and it's no crime if you don't. There **are** cases where portability |
| is not the main issue; GPIOs are often used for the kind of board-specific |
| glue logic that may even change between board revisions, and can't ever be |
| used on a board that's wired differently. Only least-common-denominator |
| functionality can be very portable. Other features are platform-specific, |
| and that can be critical for glue logic. |
| |
| Plus, this doesn't require any implementation framework, just an interface. |
| One platform might implement it as simple inline functions accessing chip |
| registers; another might implement it by delegating through abstractions |
| used for several very different kinds of GPIO controller. (There is some |
| optional code supporting such an implementation strategy, described later |
| in this document, but drivers acting as clients to the GPIO interface must |
| not care how it's implemented.) |
| |
| That said, if the convention is supported on their platform, drivers should |
| use it when possible. Platforms must select GPIOLIB if GPIO functionality |
| is strictly required. Drivers that can't work without |
| standard GPIO calls should have Kconfig entries which depend on GPIOLIB. The |
| GPIO calls are available, either as "real code" or as optimized-away stubs, |
| when drivers use the include file: |
| |
| #include <linux/gpio.h> |
| |
| If you stick to this convention then it'll be easier for other developers to |
| see what your code is doing, and help maintain it. |
| |
| Note that these operations include I/O barriers on platforms which need to |
| use them; drivers don't need to add them explicitly. |
| |
| |
| Identifying GPIOs |
| ----------------- |
| GPIOs are identified by unsigned integers in the range 0..MAX_INT. That |
| reserves "negative" numbers for other purposes like marking signals as |
| "not available on this board", or indicating faults. Code that doesn't |
| touch the underlying hardware treats these integers as opaque cookies. |
| |
| Platforms define how they use those integers, and usually #define symbols |
| for the GPIO lines so that board-specific setup code directly corresponds |
| to the relevant schematics. In contrast, drivers should only use GPIO |
| numbers passed to them from that setup code, using platform_data to hold |
| board-specific pin configuration data (along with other board specific |
| data they need). That avoids portability problems. |
| |
| So for example one platform uses numbers 32-159 for GPIOs; while another |
| 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. |
| |
| If you want to initialize a structure with an invalid GPIO number, use |
| some negative number (perhaps "-EINVAL"); that will never be valid. To |
| test if such number from such a structure could reference a GPIO, you |
| may use this predicate: |
| |
| int gpio_is_valid(int number); |
| |
| A number that's not valid will be rejected by calls which may request |
| or free GPIOs (see below). Other numbers may also be rejected; for |
| example, a number might be valid but temporarily unused on a given board. |
| |
| Whether a platform supports multiple GPIO controllers is a platform-specific |
| implementation issue, as are whether that support can leave "holes" in the space |
| of GPIO numbers, and whether new controllers can be added at runtime. Such issues |
| can affect things including whether adjacent GPIO numbers are both valid. |
| |
| Using GPIOs |
| ----------- |
| The first thing a system should do with a GPIO is allocate it, using |
| the gpio_request() call; see later. |
| |
| One of the next things to do with a GPIO, often in board setup code when |
| setting up a platform_device using the GPIO, is mark its direction:: |
| |
| /* set as input or output, returning 0 or negative errno */ |
| int gpio_direction_input(unsigned gpio); |
| int gpio_direction_output(unsigned gpio, int value); |
| |
| The return value is zero for success, else a negative errno. It should |
| be checked, since the get/set calls don't have error returns and since |
| misconfiguration is possible. You should normally issue these calls from |
| a task context. However, for spinlock-safe GPIOs it's OK to use them |
| before tasking is enabled, as part of early board setup. |
| |
| For output GPIOs, the value provided becomes the initial output value. |
| This helps avoid signal glitching during system startup. |
| |
| For compatibility with legacy interfaces to GPIOs, setting the direction |
| of a GPIO implicitly requests that GPIO (see below) if it has not been |
| requested already. That compatibility is being removed from the optional |
| gpiolib framework. |
| |
| Setting the direction can fail if the GPIO number is invalid, or when |
| that particular GPIO can't be used in that mode. It's generally a bad |
| idea to rely on boot firmware to have set the direction correctly, since |
| it probably wasn't validated to do more than boot Linux. (Similarly, |
| that board setup code probably needs to multiplex that pin as a GPIO, |
| and configure pullups/pulldowns appropriately.) |
| |
| |
| Spinlock-Safe GPIO access |
| ------------------------- |
| Most GPIO controllers can be accessed with memory read/write instructions. |
| Those don't need to sleep, and can safely be done from inside hard |
| (nonthreaded) IRQ handlers and similar contexts. |
| |
| Use the following calls to access such GPIOs:: |
| |
| /* GPIO INPUT: return zero or nonzero */ |
| int gpio_get_value(unsigned gpio); |
| |
| /* GPIO OUTPUT */ |
| void gpio_set_value(unsigned gpio, int value); |
| |
| The values are boolean, zero for low, nonzero for high. When reading the |
| value of an output pin, the value returned should be what's seen on the |
| pin ... that won't always match the specified output value, because of |
| issues including open-drain signaling and output latencies. |
| |
| The get/set calls have no error returns because "invalid GPIO" should have |
| been reported earlier from gpio_direction_*(). However, note that not all |
| platforms can read the value of output pins; those that can't should always |
| return zero. Also, using these calls for GPIOs that can't safely be accessed |
| without sleeping (see below) is an error. |
| |
| Platform-specific implementations are encouraged to optimize the two |
| calls to access the GPIO value in cases where the GPIO number (and for |
| output, value) are constant. It's normal for them to need only a couple |
| of instructions in such cases (reading or writing a hardware register), |
| and not to need spinlocks. Such optimized calls can make bitbanging |
| applications a lot more efficient (in both space and time) than spending |
| dozens of instructions on subroutine calls. |
| |
| |
| GPIO access that may sleep |
| -------------------------- |
| Some GPIO controllers must be accessed using message based busses like I2C |
| or SPI. Commands to read or write those GPIO values require waiting to |
| get to the head of a queue to transmit a command and get its response. |
| This requires sleeping, which can't be done from inside IRQ handlers. |
| To access such GPIOs, a different set of accessors is defined:: |
| |
| /* GPIO INPUT: return zero or nonzero, might sleep */ |
| int gpio_get_value_cansleep(unsigned gpio); |
| |
| /* GPIO OUTPUT, might sleep */ |
| void gpio_set_value_cansleep(unsigned gpio, int value); |
| |
| Accessing such GPIOs requires a context which may sleep, for example |
| a threaded IRQ handler, and those accessors must be used instead of |
| spinlock-safe accessors without the cansleep() name suffix. |
| |
| Other than the fact that these accessors might sleep, and will work |
| on GPIOs that can't be accessed from hardIRQ handlers, these calls act |
| the same as the spinlock-safe calls. |
| |
| **IN ADDITION** calls to setup and configure such GPIOs must be made |
| from contexts which may sleep, since they may need to access the GPIO |
| controller chip too (These setup calls are usually made from board |
| setup or driver probe/teardown code, so this is an easy constraint.):: |
| |
| gpio_direction_input() |
| gpio_direction_output() |
| gpio_request() |
| |
| ## gpio_request_one() |
| |
| gpio_free() |
| |
| |
| Claiming and Releasing GPIOs |
| ---------------------------- |
| To help catch system configuration errors, two calls are defined:: |
| |
| /* request GPIO, returning 0 or negative errno. |
| * non-null labels may be useful for diagnostics. |
| */ |
| int gpio_request(unsigned gpio, const char *label); |
| |
| /* release previously-claimed GPIO */ |
| void gpio_free(unsigned gpio); |
| |
| Passing invalid GPIO numbers to gpio_request() will fail, as will requesting |
| GPIOs that have already been claimed with that call. The return value of |
| gpio_request() must be checked. You should normally issue these calls from |
| a task context. However, for spinlock-safe GPIOs it's OK to request GPIOs |
| before tasking is enabled, as part of early board setup. |
| |
| These calls serve two basic purposes. One is marking the signals which |
| are actually in use as GPIOs, for better diagnostics; systems may have |
| several hundred potential GPIOs, but often only a dozen are used on any |
| given board. Another is to catch conflicts, identifying errors when |
| (a) two or more drivers wrongly think they have exclusive use of that |
| signal, or (b) something wrongly believes it's safe to remove drivers |
| needed to manage a signal that's in active use. That is, requesting a |
| GPIO can serve as a kind of lock. |
| |
| Some platforms may also use knowledge about what GPIOs are active for |
| power management, such as by powering down unused chip sectors and, more |
| easily, gating off unused clocks. |
| |
| For GPIOs that use pins known to the pinctrl subsystem, that subsystem should |
| be informed of their use; a gpiolib driver's .request() operation may call |
| pinctrl_gpio_request(), and a gpiolib driver's .free() operation may call |
| pinctrl_gpio_free(). The pinctrl subsystem allows a pinctrl_gpio_request() |
| to succeed concurrently with a pin or pingroup being "owned" by a device for |
| pin multiplexing. |
| |
| Any programming of pin multiplexing hardware that is needed to route the |
| GPIO signal to the appropriate pin should occur within a GPIO driver's |
| .direction_input() or .direction_output() operations, and occur after any |
| setup of an output GPIO's value. This allows a glitch-free migration from a |
| pin's special function to GPIO. This is sometimes required when using a GPIO |
| to implement a workaround on signals typically driven by a non-GPIO HW block. |
| |
| Some platforms allow some or all GPIO signals to be routed to different pins. |
| Similarly, other aspects of the GPIO or pin may need to be configured, such as |
| pullup/pulldown. Platform software should arrange that any such details are |
| configured prior to gpio_request() being called for those GPIOs, e.g. using |
| the pinctrl subsystem's mapping table, so that GPIO users need not be aware |
| of these details. |
| |
| Also note that it's your responsibility to have stopped using a GPIO |
| before you free it. |
| |
| Considering in most cases GPIOs are actually configured right after they |
| are claimed, three additional calls are defined:: |
| |
| /* request a single GPIO, with initial configuration specified by |
| * 'flags', identical to gpio_request() wrt other arguments and |
| * return value |
| */ |
| int gpio_request_one(unsigned gpio, unsigned long flags, const char *label); |
| |
| where 'flags' is currently defined to specify the following properties: |
| |
| * GPIOF_DIR_IN - to configure direction as input |
| * GPIOF_DIR_OUT - to configure direction as output |
| |
| * GPIOF_INIT_LOW - as output, set initial level to LOW |
| * GPIOF_INIT_HIGH - as output, set initial level to HIGH |
| |
| since GPIOF_INIT_* are only valid when configured as output, so group valid |
| combinations as: |
| |
| * GPIOF_IN - configure as input |
| * GPIOF_OUT_INIT_LOW - configured as output, initial level LOW |
| * GPIOF_OUT_INIT_HIGH - configured as output, initial level HIGH |
| |
| Further more, to ease the claim/release of multiple GPIOs, 'struct gpio' is |
| introduced to encapsulate all three fields as:: |
| |
| struct gpio { |
| unsigned gpio; |
| unsigned long flags; |
| const char *label; |
| }; |
| |
| A typical example of usage:: |
| |
| static struct gpio leds_gpios[] = { |
| { 32, GPIOF_OUT_INIT_HIGH, "Power LED" }, /* default to ON */ |
| { 33, GPIOF_OUT_INIT_LOW, "Green LED" }, /* default to OFF */ |
| { 34, GPIOF_OUT_INIT_LOW, "Red LED" }, /* default to OFF */ |
| { 35, GPIOF_OUT_INIT_LOW, "Blue LED" }, /* default to OFF */ |
| { ... }, |
| }; |
| |
| err = gpio_request_one(31, GPIOF_IN, "Reset Button"); |
| if (err) |
| ... |
| |
| |
| GPIOs mapped to IRQs |
| -------------------- |
| GPIO numbers are unsigned integers; so are IRQ numbers. These make up |
| two logically distinct namespaces (GPIO 0 need not use IRQ 0). You can |
| map between them using calls like:: |
| |
| /* map GPIO numbers to IRQ numbers */ |
| int gpio_to_irq(unsigned gpio); |
| |
| Those return either the corresponding number in the other namespace, or |
| else a negative errno code if the mapping can't be done. (For example, |
| some GPIOs can't be used as IRQs.) It is an unchecked error to use a GPIO |
| number that wasn't set up as an input using gpio_direction_input(), or |
| to use an IRQ number that didn't originally come from gpio_to_irq(). |
| |
| These two mapping calls are expected to cost on the order of a single |
| addition or subtraction. They're not allowed to sleep. |
| |
| Non-error values returned from gpio_to_irq() can be passed to request_irq() |
| or free_irq(). They will often be stored into IRQ resources for platform |
| devices, by the board-specific initialization code. Note that IRQ trigger |
| options are part of the IRQ interface, e.g. IRQF_TRIGGER_FALLING, as are |
| system wakeup capabilities. |
| |
| |
| Emulating Open Drain Signals |
| ---------------------------- |
| Sometimes shared signals need to use "open drain" signaling, where only the |
| low signal level is actually driven. (That term applies to CMOS transistors; |
| "open collector" is used for TTL.) A pullup resistor causes the high signal |
| level. This is sometimes called a "wire-AND"; or more practically, from the |
| negative logic (low=true) perspective this is a "wire-OR". |
| |
| One common example of an open drain signal is a shared active-low IRQ line. |
| Also, bidirectional data bus signals sometimes use open drain signals. |
| |
| Some GPIO controllers directly support open drain outputs; many don't. When |
| you need open drain signaling but your hardware doesn't directly support it, |
| there's a common idiom you can use to emulate it with any GPIO pin that can |
| be used as either an input or an output: |
| |
| LOW: gpio_direction_output(gpio, 0) ... this drives the signal |
| and overrides the pullup. |
| |
| HIGH: gpio_direction_input(gpio) ... this turns off the output, |
| so the pullup (or some other device) controls the signal. |
| |
| If you are "driving" the signal high but gpio_get_value(gpio) reports a low |
| value (after the appropriate rise time passes), you know some other component |
| is driving the shared signal low. That's not necessarily an error. As one |
| common example, that's how I2C clocks are stretched: a slave that needs a |
| slower clock delays the rising edge of SCK, and the I2C master adjusts its |
| signaling rate accordingly. |
| |
| |
| GPIO controllers and the pinctrl subsystem |
| ------------------------------------------ |
| |
| A GPIO controller on a SOC might be tightly coupled with the pinctrl |
| subsystem, in the sense that the pins can be used by other functions |
| together with an optional gpio feature. We have already covered the |
| case where e.g. a GPIO controller need to reserve a pin or set the |
| direction of a pin by calling any of:: |
| |
| pinctrl_gpio_request() |
| pinctrl_gpio_free() |
| pinctrl_gpio_direction_input() |
| pinctrl_gpio_direction_output() |
| |
| But how does the pin control subsystem cross-correlate the GPIO |
| numbers (which are a global business) to a certain pin on a certain |
| pin controller? |
| |
| This is done by registering "ranges" of pins, which are essentially |
| cross-reference tables. These are described in |
| Documentation/driver-api/pin-control.rst |
| |
| While the pin allocation is totally managed by the pinctrl subsystem, |
| gpio (under gpiolib) is still maintained by gpio drivers. It may happen |
| that different pin ranges in a SoC is managed by different gpio drivers. |
| |
| This makes it logical to let gpio drivers announce their pin ranges to |
| the pin ctrl subsystem before it will call 'pinctrl_gpio_request' in order |
| to request the corresponding pin to be prepared by the pinctrl subsystem |
| before any gpio usage. |
| |
| For this, the gpio controller can register its pin range with pinctrl |
| subsystem. There are two ways of doing it currently: with or without DT. |
| |
| For with DT support refer to Documentation/devicetree/bindings/gpio/gpio.txt. |
| |
| For non-DT support, user can call gpiochip_add_pin_range() with appropriate |
| parameters to register a range of gpio pins with a pinctrl driver. For this |
| exact name string of pinctrl device has to be passed as one of the |
| argument to this routine. |
| |
| |
| What do these conventions omit? |
| =============================== |
| One of the biggest things these conventions omit is pin multiplexing, since |
| this is highly chip-specific and nonportable. One platform might not need |
| explicit multiplexing; another might have just two options for use of any |
| given pin; another might have eight options per pin; another might be able |
| to route a given GPIO to any one of several pins. (Yes, those examples all |
| come from systems that run Linux today.) |
| |
| Related to multiplexing is configuration and enabling of the pullups or |
| pulldowns integrated on some platforms. Not all platforms support them, |
| or support them in the same way; and any given board might use external |
| pullups (or pulldowns) so that the on-chip ones should not be used. |
| (When a circuit needs 5 kOhm, on-chip 100 kOhm resistors won't do.) |
| Likewise drive strength (2 mA vs 20 mA) and voltage (1.8V vs 3.3V) is a |
| platform-specific issue, as are models like (not) having a one-to-one |
| correspondence between configurable pins and GPIOs. |
| |
| There are other system-specific mechanisms that are not specified here, |
| like the aforementioned options for input de-glitching and wire-OR output. |
| Hardware may support reading or writing GPIOs in gangs, but that's usually |
| configuration dependent: for GPIOs sharing the same bank. (GPIOs are |
| commonly grouped in banks of 16 or 32, with a given SOC having several such |
| banks.) Some systems can trigger IRQs from output GPIOs, or read values |
| from pins not managed as GPIOs. Code relying on such mechanisms will |
| necessarily be nonportable. |
| |
| Dynamic definition of GPIOs is not currently standard; for example, as |
| a side effect of configuring an add-on board with some GPIO expanders. |
| |
| |
| GPIO implementor's framework (OPTIONAL) |
| ======================================= |
| As noted earlier, there is an optional implementation framework making it |
| easier for platforms to support different kinds of GPIO controller using |
| the same programming interface. This framework is called "gpiolib". |
| |
| As a debugging aid, if debugfs is available a /sys/kernel/debug/gpio file |
| will be found there. That will list all the controllers registered through |
| this framework, and the state of the GPIOs currently in use. |
| |
| |
| Controller Drivers: gpio_chip |
| ----------------------------- |
| In this framework each GPIO controller is packaged as a "struct gpio_chip" |
| with information common to each controller of that type: |
| |
| - methods to establish GPIO direction |
| - methods used to access GPIO values |
| - flag saying whether calls to its methods may sleep |
| - optional debugfs dump method (showing extra state like pullup config) |
| - label for diagnostics |
| |
| There is also per-instance data, which may come from device.platform_data: |
| the number of its first GPIO, and how many GPIOs it exposes. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| |
| Platform Support |
| ---------------- |
| To force-enable this framework, a platform's Kconfig will "select" GPIOLIB, |
| else it is up to the user to configure support for GPIO. |
| |
| If neither of these options are selected, the platform does not support |
| GPIOs through GPIO-lib and the code cannot be enabled by the user. |
| |
| Trivial implementations of those functions can directly use framework |
| code, which always dispatches through the gpio_chip:: |
| |
| #define gpio_get_value __gpio_get_value |
| #define gpio_set_value __gpio_set_value |
| |
| Fancier implementations could instead define those as inline functions with |
| logic optimizing access to specific SOC-based GPIOs. For example, if the |
| referenced GPIO is the constant "12", getting or setting its value could |
| cost as little as two or three instructions, never sleeping. When such an |
| optimization is not possible those calls must delegate to the framework |
| code, costing at least a few dozen instructions. For bitbanged I/O, such |
| instruction savings can be significant. |
| |
| For SOCs, platform-specific code defines and registers gpio_chip instances |
| for each bank of on-chip GPIOs. Those GPIOs should be numbered/labeled to |
| match chip vendor documentation, and directly match board schematics. They |
| may well start at zero and go up to a platform-specific limit. Such GPIOs |
| are normally integrated into platform initialization to make them always be |
| available, from arch_initcall() or earlier; they can often serve as IRQs. |
| |
| |
| Board Support |
| ------------- |
| For external GPIO controllers -- such as I2C or SPI expanders, ASICs, multi |
| function devices, FPGAs or CPLDs -- most often board-specific code handles |
| registering controller devices and ensures that their drivers know what GPIO |
| numbers to use with gpiochip_add(). Their numbers often start right after |
| platform-specific GPIOs. |
| |
| For example, board setup code could create structures identifying the range |
| of GPIOs that chip will expose, and passes them to each GPIO expander chip |
| using platform_data. Then the chip driver's probe() routine could pass that |
| data to gpiochip_add(). |
| |
| Initialization order can be important. For example, when a device relies on |
| an I2C-based GPIO, its probe() routine should only be called after that GPIO |
| becomes available. That may mean the device should not be registered until |
| calls for that GPIO can work. One way to address such dependencies is for |
| such gpio_chip controllers to provide setup() and teardown() callbacks to |
| board specific code; those board specific callbacks would register devices |
| once all the necessary resources are available, and remove them later when |
| the GPIO controller device becomes unavailable. |
| |
| |
| Sysfs Interface for Userspace (OPTIONAL) |
| ======================================== |
| Platforms which use the "gpiolib" implementors framework may choose to |
| configure a sysfs user interface to GPIOs. This is different from the |
| debugfs interface, since it provides control over GPIO direction and |
| value instead of just showing a gpio state summary. Plus, it could be |
| present on production systems without debugging support. |
| |
| Given appropriate hardware documentation for the system, userspace could |
| know for example that GPIO #23 controls the write protect line used to |
| protect boot loader segments in flash memory. System upgrade procedures |
| may need to temporarily remove that protection, first importing a GPIO, |
| then changing its output state, then updating the code before re-enabling |
| the write protection. In normal use, GPIO #23 would never be touched, |
| and the kernel would have no need to know about it. |
| |
| Again depending on appropriate hardware documentation, on some systems |
| userspace GPIO can be used to determine system configuration data that |
| standard kernels won't know about. And for some tasks, simple userspace |
| GPIO drivers could be all that the system really needs. |
| |
| Note that standard kernel drivers exist for common "LEDs and Buttons" |
| GPIO tasks: "leds-gpio" and "gpio_keys", respectively. Use those |
| instead of talking directly to the GPIOs; they integrate with kernel |
| frameworks better than your userspace code could. |
| |
| |
| Paths in Sysfs |
| -------------- |
| There are three kinds of entry in /sys/class/gpio: |
| |
| - Control interfaces used to get userspace control over GPIOs; |
| |
| - GPIOs themselves; and |
| |
| - GPIO controllers ("gpio_chip" instances). |
| |
| That's in addition to standard files including the "device" symlink. |
| |
| The control interfaces are write-only: |
| |
| /sys/class/gpio/ |
| |
| "export" ... Userspace may ask the kernel to export control of |
| a GPIO to userspace by writing its number to this file. |
| |
| Example: "echo 19 > export" will create a "gpio19" node |
| for GPIO #19, if that's not requested by kernel code. |
| |
| "unexport" ... Reverses the effect of exporting to userspace. |
| |
| Example: "echo 19 > unexport" will remove a "gpio19" |
| node exported using the "export" file. |
| |
| GPIO signals have paths like /sys/class/gpio/gpio42/ (for GPIO #42) |
| and have the following read/write attributes: |
| |
| /sys/class/gpio/gpioN/ |
| |
| "direction" ... reads as either "in" or "out". This value may |
| normally be written. Writing as "out" defaults to |
| initializing the value as low. To ensure glitch free |
| operation, values "low" and "high" may be written to |
| configure the GPIO as an output with that initial value. |
| |
| Note that this attribute *will not exist* if the kernel |
| doesn't support changing the direction of a GPIO, or |
| it was exported by kernel code that didn't explicitly |
| allow userspace to reconfigure this GPIO's direction. |
| |
| "value" ... reads as either 0 (low) or 1 (high). If the GPIO |
| is configured as an output, this value may be written; |
| any nonzero value is treated as high. |
| |
| If the pin can be configured as interrupt-generating interrupt |
| and if it has been configured to generate interrupts (see the |
| description of "edge"), you can poll(2) on that file and |
| poll(2) will return whenever the interrupt was triggered. If |
| you use poll(2), set the events POLLPRI. If you use select(2), |
| set the file descriptor in exceptfds. After poll(2) returns, |
| either lseek(2) to the beginning of the sysfs file and read the |
| new value or close the file and re-open it to read the value. |
| |
| "edge" ... reads as either "none", "rising", "falling", or |
| "both". Write these strings to select the signal edge(s) |
| that will make poll(2) on the "value" file return. |
| |
| This file exists only if the pin can be configured as an |
| interrupt generating input pin. |
| |
| "active_low" ... reads as either 0 (false) or 1 (true). Write |
| any nonzero value to invert the value attribute both |
| for reading and writing. Existing and subsequent |
| poll(2) support configuration via the edge attribute |
| for "rising" and "falling" edges will follow this |
| setting. |
| |
| GPIO controllers have paths like /sys/class/gpio/gpiochip42/ (for the |
| controller implementing GPIOs starting at #42) and have the following |
| read-only attributes: |
| |
| /sys/class/gpio/gpiochipN/ |
| |
| "base" ... same as N, the first GPIO managed by this chip |
| |
| "label" ... provided for diagnostics (not always unique) |
| |
| "ngpio" ... how many GPIOs this manges (N to N + ngpio - 1) |
| |
| Board documentation should in most cases cover what GPIOs are used for |
| what purposes. However, those numbers are not always stable; GPIOs on |
| a daughtercard might be different depending on the base board being used, |
| or other cards in the stack. In such cases, you may need to use the |
| gpiochip nodes (possibly in conjunction with schematics) to determine |
| the correct GPIO number to use for a given signal. |
| |
| |
| API Reference |
| ============= |
| |
| The functions listed in this section are deprecated. The GPIO descriptor based |
| API should be used in new code. |
| |
| .. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpio/gpiolib-legacy.c |
| :export: |