[I2C] informations + advice about messages handling

[Mylene Josserand]

Thanks, both of you, for your answers ! It helps me a lot to understand it !

Le 24/05/2013 09:22, anish singh a écrit :
 > On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Mylene Josserand
 > <Mylene.Josserand at navocap.com>  wrote:
 >> Hi all,
 >>
 >>
 >> I am learning how i2c is working and I read that, to write in an i2c
 >> register, I need to use the function "i2c_smbus_write_byte_data".
 > Only in case your device is smbus compliant.

Ah okay ! And if there are not SMBus compliant, what function I will 
have to use ?
What is it doing if I use this function and that my device is not SMbus 
compliant ? I have some difficulties to understand the differences 
between SMbus and I2C :(


Le 24/05/2013 09:44, Jean Delvare a écrit :
 > Hi Anish, Mylène,
 >
 > On Fri, 24 May 2013 12:52:40 +0530, anish singh wrote:
 >> On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Mylene Josserand
 >> <Mylene.Josserand at navocap.com>  wrote:
 >>> I have read that this function "i2c_smbus_write_byte_data" uses
 >>> "i2c_smbus_xfer" which uses "i2c_lock_adapter".
 >>> In this function, there is a mutex so I thought that it will handle it
 >>> but it says "Get exclusive access to an I2C bus segment". What is
 >>> exactly an I2C segment ? Is it the device we are talking about ? Or is
 >>> it the use of the i2c bus ?
 >> Don't know what you are referring here.
 >
 > In the most simple case, your I2C bus has a single segment so "segment"
 > or "bus" mean the same thing.
 >
 > It only starts mattering when I2C bus multiplexing comes into play.
 > Then your bus is split into segments, with one segment (trunk) between
 > the master (controller) and the multiplexer, and one or more segments
 > (branches) hanging off the multiplexer.
 >
 > Take look at
 > https://i2c.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/I2C_bus_multiplexing
 > for a sample topology.
 >
 > But anyway the comment in front of i2c_lock_adapter() is somewhat
 > misleading. If you read the code you'll see that it always locks the
 > whole bus tree, because it uses the root segment's mutex.


Thanks ! I understand now.
In my case, I have 2 segments but if I understand, the bus will not be 
used at the same time.


 >>> I will certainly have to create an i2c driver and I would like to know
 >>> if this "collision" handling (if it is handled) is done in old kernel
 >>> (2.6.32) or is it handled only in new kernel versions ?
 >> AFAIK collision handling and detection was not supported till now
 >> in linux kernel until recently but I think this patch is doing that.
 >> I may be wrong but I didn't see collision handling in earlier linux
 >> kernels.
 >> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1410276
 >
 > This is for a specific case. The general case is handled by the
 > per-adapter mutex for years now. 2.6.32 should be just fine in this
 > respect.

Okay. So the mutex blocks the I2C bus. And is it locking the bus at the 
beginning of a message (so when a START is send) and unlocking it after 
the STOP ?
So a complete message will be sent to a same device (the one which 
address is in the data frame) ? A device can not receive a beginning of 
one message (so with his address) and the end of another message 
destined to another device [because of "collision"], for example ?


 >>> If you have any documentation on how the i2c messages are handled in
 >>> case of different devices uses, it will help me a lot ! I will 
search in
 >>> the kernel documentation but there is many files about i2c.
 >>> And if you know a good i2c driver that I can use as an example to 
design
 >>> mine, it will be great !
 >
 > Best is to look at a driver for a device which is similar in
 > functionality to yours.

I will search that, thanks for the advice.


-- 
Mylène JOSSERAND