docs: dmaengine: document ownership of the descriptor flags field

The flags field of struct dma_async_tx_descriptor has carried a TODO
since the provider documentation was added in 2014, asking whether a
driver may modify the field itself or whether it must always hold the
flags passed in the arguments.

The field belongs to the client. dma_async_tx_descriptor_init() does
not touch it, so the provider has to set it, and providers store the
flags they were given verbatim; vchan_tx_prep() does this for every
driver built on top of virt-dma. Afterwards providers only read the
field: the DMA_PREP_* bits are consumed while the descriptor is being
prepared, and DMA_CTRL_ACK and DMA_CTRL_REUSE are tested with
async_tx_test_ack() and dmaengine_desc_test_reuse() before a
descriptor is recycled or freed.

Once a descriptor has been prepared, nothing in the tree changes the
field except the client helpers in include/linux/dmaengine.h:
async_tx_ack(), async_tx_clear_ack(), dmaengine_desc_set_reuse() and
dmaengine_desc_clear_reuse().

Document that rule in place of the TODO.

Signed-off-by: Bogdan Mahomet <bogdan.mahomet.dev@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Frank Li <Frank.Li@nxp.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260822001536.29269-1-bogdan.mahomet.dev@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Vinod Koul <vkoul@kernel.org>
This commit is contained in:
Bogdan Mahomet 2026-08-22 03:15:30 +03:00 committed by Vinod Koul
parent 742c2a8041
commit ef399305a5

View File

@ -413,9 +413,11 @@ supported.
- You'll also need to set following fields in this structure:
- flags:
TODO: Can it be modified by the driver itself, or
should it be always the flags passed in the arguments
- flags: this field belongs to the client. The driver stores the
flags passed in the arguments and must not modify them. It reads
the DMA_PREP_* bits while preparing the descriptor, and must only
test DMA_CTRL_ACK and DMA_CTRL_REUSE, which the client may change
after the descriptor has been prepared.
- tx_submit: A pointer to a function you have to implement,
that is supposed to push the current transaction descriptor to a