This is a new-style I2C driver for most common 8 and 16 bit I2C based
"quasi-bidirectional" GPIO expanders: pcf8574 or pcf8575, and several
compatible models (mostly faster, supporting I2C at up to 1 MHz).
The driver exposes the GPIO signals using the platform-neutral GPIO
programming interface, so they are easily accessed by other kernel code. The
lack of such a flexible kernel API has been a big factor in the proliferation
of board-specific drivers for these chips... stuff that rarely makes it
upstream since it's so ugly. This driver will let such boards use standard
calls.
Since it's a new-style driver, these devices must be configured as part of
board-specific init. That eliminates the need for error-prone manual
configuration of module parameters, and makes compatibility with legacy
drivers (pcf8574.c, pc8575.c) for these chips easier (there's a clear
either/or disjunction).
Signed-off-by: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
Acked-by: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
Cc: Eric Miao <eric.miao@marvell.com>
Cc: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>
Cc: Haavard Skinnemoen <hskinnemoen@atmel.com>
Cc: Philipp Zabel <philipp.zabel@gmail.com>
Cc: Russell King <rmk@arm.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Ben Gardner <bgardner@wabtec.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
