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authorDavid Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au>2007-06-28 15:56:26 +1000
committerPaul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>2007-06-28 19:19:31 +1000
commiteff2ebd207af9f501af0ef667a7d14befcb36c1b (patch)
treec27952d9d29d246caacfdba173d8e3c49ab876bc /Documentation/powerpc
parentea1a734ad73478dace97e9712101029f536d10a3 (diff)
downloadlinux-eff2ebd207af9f501af0ef667a7d14befcb36c1b.tar.bz2
[POWERPC] In booting-without-of.txt, clarify that properties must precede subnodes
A strict reading of the flattened device tree format defined in booting-without-of.txt does in fact require that all the tags defining properties for a node go before any definitions of subnodes, however it's not particularly emphasised. Although allowing intermingled properties and subnodes would not be ambiguous in meaning, the kernel parser does currently require that properties precede subnodes. Furthermore, keeping this constraint makes life easier for various device tree scanning tools. Therefore, re-emphasise in booting-without-of.txt that this is a strict requirement of the flattened device tree format. Signed-off-by: David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/powerpc')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/powerpc/booting-without-of.txt8
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/powerpc/booting-without-of.txt b/Documentation/powerpc/booting-without-of.txt
index d42d98107d49..c169299716b1 100644
--- a/Documentation/powerpc/booting-without-of.txt
+++ b/Documentation/powerpc/booting-without-of.txt
@@ -626,6 +626,14 @@ So the node content can be summarized as a start token, a full path,
a list of properties, a list of child nodes, and an end token. Every
child node is a full node structure itself as defined above.
+NOTE: The above definition requires that all property definitions for
+a particular node MUST precede any subnode definitions for that node.
+Although the structure would not be ambiguous if properties and
+subnodes were intermingled, the kernel parser requires that the
+properties come first (up until at least 2.6.22). Any tools
+manipulating a flattened tree must take care to preserve this
+constraint.
+
4) Device tree "strings" block
In order to save space, property names, which are generally redundant,