Re: [U-Boot] U-Boot: Enhancement request to get flash device specific information

2014-07-10 Thread HEERA NAND BHAGTANI
Hi Simon,

This tool is basically using u-boot technology to communicating to remote
board. This tool is developed such a way that it can load u-boot elf on
remote processor (available on remote board). This tool communicates with
processor using u-boot commands. It can send the u-boot command, and can
read the u-boot output message.

I am avoiding to use regular expression to extract the information. It has
two reasons,
1) In future realise of u-boot if string format is changed, my regular
expression will fail. So I need to track the format change in this message.
2) It is possible that current message does not carry all informations of
Flash device. For example,this message does not specify the kind of spi
flash it is (dual or single). So we may need to enhance message to provide
flash type. So for any new property, we need to change this message and as
a result it would break scripts/tools for those people who have been used
regular expression on this message.

So here I am suggesting to have a dedicated flag in u-boot command for each
property of flash device. In future any new property would be needed, we
only need to add a new tag and it would work without breaking any existing
stuff for users.

As per my current requirement, I can make the changes in my local u-boot
source code and can bring these new flags which will work for me. Here I am
suggesting, if we can provide this is generic solution for everyone. I
believe, it would be quite helpful for those guys who would like to
integrate u-boot in their tools or scripts.

Regards,
Heera


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Simon Glass s...@chromium.org wrote:

 Hi,

 On 2 July 2014 10:05, HEERA NAND BHAGTANI diamond@gmail.com wrote:
  Hi U-boot team,
 
  I am looking for u-boot command which can give me flash device specific
  properties. For example, there should be dedicated commands to get the
  flash memory size, sector size, page size etc.
 
  Currently I found there is command sf probe for spi flash device which
 is
  returning device properties into text format as below:
  SF : Detected N25Q128A with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 64 KiB, total
  16 MiB
 
  Similarly I found there is command nand info for nand device which is
  also returning device properties into text format.
 
  These commands (sf probe and nand info) are giving device information
  in form of message. Which does not meet my requirement.
 
  Actually I would like to integrate u-boot with my tool, where tool will
 run
  u-boot command to get the device information. Based on device information
  tool will react. Here I am looking for some dedicated command which
 return
  these property separately. It is difficult to parse the message string to
  get individual
 
  Let say we includes following commands:
  nand info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device
  sf info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device
 
  for example:
  nand info pagesize command should return page size ( e.g. *256*)
  nand info sectorsize command should return sector size (e.g. *65536*
   which is 64K)
  nand info size command should return the total size (e.g.  *268435456
 *which
  is 16 MB)
 
  Could you please consider this enhancement request in u-boot? Please
  comment.

 What kind of tool? Is it a U-Boot script? How does it get access to
 the output from U-Boot?

 You could use a regular expression to extract the information you
 need. For the commands you suggest, it might be better to put the
 values in an environment variable.

 Regards,
 Simon

___
U-Boot mailing list
U-Boot@lists.denx.de
http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot


Re: [U-Boot] U-Boot: Enhancement request to get flash device specific information

2014-07-10 Thread Wolfgang Denk
Dear Heera,

In message CANiu2MrgDg8zmHK8Dm90TJn1SgsRTe2juXScgGq11M=jedk...@mail.gmail.com 
you wrote:
 
 I am avoiding to use regular expression to extract the information. It has
 two reasons,
 1) In future realise of u-boot if string format is changed, my regular
 expression will fail. So I need to track the format change in this message.
 2) It is possible that current message does not carry all informations of
 Flash device. For example,this message does not specify the kind of spi
 flash it is (dual or single). So we may need to enhance message to provide
 flash type. So for any new property, we need to change this message and as
 a result it would break scripts/tools for those people who have been used
 regular expression on this message.

I think you are taking a wrong approach to solve the task you actually
have in mind.  Instead of trying to get all kinds if deeply low-leven
information out of U-Boot, you should try to find an abstraction level
that allows you to perform your task without knowledge about these
details.

Normally you do not really want to have to bother about details like
page size or erase size - you want to store some data on your device,
and the low-level internal organization of the storage device is not
really important here.  The usual approach to abstract away from such
lowlevel details is to use command formats that do not refer to such
data.

One approach that allows this is the structuring of your storage
device into logical units, like for example MTD partitions.  This has
the added benefit that you can pass the information about this
partitioning to the Linux kernel, so both U-Boot and Linux use the
same data layout.

I am aware that current mainline does not support mtdparts for
SPI-NOR flash devices, but patches have been posted before, and it
should be not too difficult to rebase these against current code (and
fix the issues that prevented their inclusion into mainline).

Such an approach that abstracts away the internal complexity of the
storage device and provides higher level access methods looks much
more promising to me, especially when you think about including it
into mainline.

Frankly, I don;t think your original proposal has much chance for
being included into mainline.  It is way too complex and fragile.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk  Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: w...@denx.de
You can love it, change it, or leave it.There is NO other option.
But do not complain - it is your own choice...  -- wd
___
U-Boot mailing list
U-Boot@lists.denx.de
http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot


[U-Boot] U-Boot: Enhancement request to get flash device specific information

2014-07-03 Thread HEERA NAND BHAGTANI
Hi U-boot team,

I am looking for u-boot command which can give me flash device specific
properties. For example, there should be dedicated commands to get the
flash memory size, sector size, page size etc.

Currently I found there is command sf probe for spi flash device which is
returning device properties into text format as below:
SF : Detected N25Q128A with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 64 KiB, total
16 MiB

Similarly I found there is command nand info for nand device which is
also returning device properties into text format.

These commands (sf probe and nand info) are giving device information
in form of message. Which does not meet my requirement.

Actually I would like to integrate u-boot with my tool, where tool will run
u-boot command to get the device information. Based on device information
tool will react. Here I am looking for some dedicated command which return
these property separately. It is difficult to parse the message string to
get individual

Let say we includes following commands:
nand info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device
sf info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device

for example:
nand info pagesize command should return page size ( e.g. *256*)
nand info sectorsize command should return sector size (e.g. *65536*
 which is 64K)
nand info size command should return the total size (e.g.  *268435456 *which
is 16 MB)

Could you please consider this enhancement request in u-boot? Please
comment.

Regards,
Heera
___
U-Boot mailing list
U-Boot@lists.denx.de
http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot


[U-Boot] : Enhancement request to get flash device specific information

2014-07-03 Thread HEERA NAND BHAGTANI

 Hi U-boot team,

 I am looking for u-boot command which can give me flash device specific
 properties. For example, there should be dedicated commands to get the
 flash memory size, sector size, page size etc.

 Currently I found there is command sf probe for spi flash device which
 is returning device properties into text format as below:
 SF : Detected N25Q128A with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 64 KiB, total
 16 MiB

 Similarly I found there is command nand info for nand device which is
 also returning device properties into text format.

 These commands (sf probe and nand info) are giving device information
 in form of message. Which does not meet my requirement.

 Actually I would like to integrate u-boot with my tool, where tool will
 run u-boot command to get the device information. Based on device
 information tool will react. Here I am looking for some dedicated command
 which return these property separately. It is difficult to parse the
 message string to get individual

 Let say we includes following commands:
 nand info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device
 sf info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device

 for example:
 nand info pagesize command should return page size ( e.g. *256*)
 nand info sectorsize command should return sector size (e.g. *65536*
  which is 64K)
 nand info size command should return the total size (e.g.  *268435456 *which
 is 16 MB)

 Could you please consider this enhancement request in u-boot? Please
 comment.

 Regards,
 Heera

___
U-Boot mailing list
U-Boot@lists.denx.de
http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot


Re: [U-Boot] U-Boot: Enhancement request to get flash device specific information

2014-07-03 Thread Simon Glass
Hi,

On 2 July 2014 10:05, HEERA NAND BHAGTANI diamond@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi U-boot team,

 I am looking for u-boot command which can give me flash device specific
 properties. For example, there should be dedicated commands to get the
 flash memory size, sector size, page size etc.

 Currently I found there is command sf probe for spi flash device which is
 returning device properties into text format as below:
 SF : Detected N25Q128A with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 64 KiB, total
 16 MiB

 Similarly I found there is command nand info for nand device which is
 also returning device properties into text format.

 These commands (sf probe and nand info) are giving device information
 in form of message. Which does not meet my requirement.

 Actually I would like to integrate u-boot with my tool, where tool will run
 u-boot command to get the device information. Based on device information
 tool will react. Here I am looking for some dedicated command which return
 these property separately. It is difficult to parse the message string to
 get individual

 Let say we includes following commands:
 nand info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device
 sf info pagesize/sectorsize/size/device

 for example:
 nand info pagesize command should return page size ( e.g. *256*)
 nand info sectorsize command should return sector size (e.g. *65536*
  which is 64K)
 nand info size command should return the total size (e.g.  *268435456 *which
 is 16 MB)

 Could you please consider this enhancement request in u-boot? Please
 comment.

What kind of tool? Is it a U-Boot script? How does it get access to
the output from U-Boot?

You could use a regular expression to extract the information you
need. For the commands you suggest, it might be better to put the
values in an environment variable.

Regards,
Simon
___
U-Boot mailing list
U-Boot@lists.denx.de
http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot