-----Original Message-----
From: Nikolaus Voss [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2019 12:44 AM
To: Moore, Robert <[email protected]>
Cc: Shevchenko, Andriy <[email protected]>; Schmauss, Erik 
<[email protected]>; Rafael J. Wysocki <[email protected]>; Len Brown 
<[email protected]>; Jacek Anaszewski <[email protected]>; Pavel Machek 
<[email protected]>; Dan Murphy <[email protected]>; [email protected]; 
[email protected]; [email protected]; Ferry Toth <[email protected]>; 
[email protected]
Subject: RE: [PATCH] ACPICA: make acpi_load_table() return table index

Bob,

On Thu, 12 Sep 2019, Moore, Robert wrote:
> The ability to unload an ACPI table (especially AML tables such as
> SSDTs) is in the process of being deprecated in ACPICA -- since it is 
> also deprecated in the current ACPI specification. This is being done 
> because of the difficulty of deleting the namespace entries for the 
> table.  FYI, Windows does not properly support this function either.

ok, I see it can be a problem to unload an AML table with all it's consequences 
e.g. with respect to driver unregistering in setups with complex dependencies. 
It will only work properly under certain conditions
- nevertheless acpi_tb_unload_table() is still exported in ACPICA and we should 
get this working as it worked before.

AcpiTbUnloadTable is not exported, it is an internal interface only -- as 
recognized by the "AcpiTb". I'm not sure that I want to change the interface to 
AcpiLoadTable just for something that is being deprecated. Already, we throw an 
ACPI_EXCEPTION if the Unload operator is encountered in the AML byte stream. 
The same thing with AcpiUnloadParentTable - it is being deprecated.


    ACPI_EXCEPTION ((AE_INFO, AE_NOT_IMPLEMENTED,
        "AML Unload operator is not supported"));


The API change I request is not directly related to table unloading, it's just 
that the index of the loaded table is returned for future reference:

[...]

>> diff --git a/include/acpi/acpixf.h b/include/acpi/acpixf.h index 
>> 3845c8fcc94e5..c90bbdc4146a6 100644
>> --- a/include/acpi/acpixf.h
>> +++ b/include/acpi/acpixf.h
>> @@ -452,7 +452,8 @@ ACPI_EXTERNAL_RETURN_STATUS(acpi_status 
>> ACPI_INIT_FUNCTION
>>                                             u8 physical))
>>
>> ACPI_EXTERNAL_RETURN_STATUS(acpi_status
>> -                        acpi_load_table(struct acpi_table_header *table))
>> +                        acpi_load_table(struct acpi_table_header *table,
>> +                                        u32 *table_idx))
>>
>> ACPI_EXTERNAL_RETURN_STATUS(acpi_status
>>                          acpi_unload_parent_table(acpi_handle object))
>> --
>> 2.17.1
>>

This allows for a simple fix of the regression and doesn't imply future support 
for table unloading. Would this be acceptable?

Niko

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