xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/dtc/dtc.1 (revision 41840d75)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2013 David Chisnall
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31.\" $FreeBSD$
32.\"/
33.Dd January 1, 2013
34.Dt DTC 1
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm dtc
38.Nd device tree compiler
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.Nm
41.Op Fl fhsv
42.Op Fl b Ar boot_cpu_id
43.Op Fl d Ar dependency_file
44.Op Fl E Ar [no-]checker_name
45.Op Fl H Ar phandle_format
46.Op Fl I Ar input_format
47.Op Fl O Ar output_format
48.Op Fl o Ar output_file
49.Op Fl R Ar entries
50.Op Fl S Ar bytes
51.Op Fl p Ar bytes
52.Op Fl V Ar blob_version
53.Op Fl W Ar [no-]checker_name
54.Ar input_file
55.Sh DESCRIPTION
56The
57.Nm
58utility converts flattened device tree (FDT) representations.
59 It is most commonly used to generate device tree blobs (DTB), the binary
60representation of an FDT, from device tree sources (DTS), the ASCII text source
61representation.
62.Pp
63The binary can be written in two formats, binary and assembly.
64The binary is identical to the in-memory representation and can be used
65directly by firmware, loaders, and so on.
66The assembly format, documented in
67.Sx "ASM FORMAT" ,
68will produce the same binary format when assembled, but also includes some
69global variables that refer to parts of the table.
70This format is most commonly used to produce a kernel specific to a device,
71with the device tree blob compiled in.
72.Pp
73The options are as follows:
74.Bl -tag -width indent
75.It Fl d Ar dependency_file
76Writes a dependency file understandable by make to the specified file.
77This file can be included in a Makefile and will ensure that the output file
78depends on the input file and any files that it includes.
79This argument is only useful when the input is DTS, as only the source format
80has a notion of inclusions.
81.It Fl E Ar [no-]checker_name
82Enable or disable a specified checker.
83The argument is the name of the checker.
84The full list of checkers is given in
85.Sx CHECKERS .
86.It Fl f
87Force the tool to attempt to generate the output, even if the input had errors.
88.It Fl h
89Display the help text and exit.
90.It Fl H Ar phandle_format
91Specifies the type of phandle nodes to generate in the output.
92Valid values are:
93.Pp
94.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
95.It Ar linux
96Generate the legacy linux,phandle nodes expected by older systems.
97.It Ar epapr
98Generate the phandle nodes, as described in the ePAPR specification.
99This is the most sensible option for device trees being used with
100.Fx .
101.It Ar both
102Generate both, for maximum compatibility.
103.El
104.It Fl I Ar input_format
105Specifies the input format.
106Valid values are:
107.Pp
108.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
109.It Ar dtb
110Device tree blob.
111The binary representation of the FDT.
112.It Ar dts
113Device tree source.
114The ASCII representation of the FDT.
115This is the default if the input format is not explicitly stated.
116.El
117.It Fl O Ar output_format
118Specifies the output format.
119Valid values are:
120.Pp
121.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
122.It Ar asm
123Assembler source for generating a device tree blob, as described in
124.Sx "ASM FORMAT" .
125.It Ar dtb
126Device tree blob.
127The binary representation of the FDT.
128This is the default if the output format is not explicitly stated.
129.It Ar dts
130Device tree source.
131The ASCII representation of the FDT.
132.El
133.It Fl o Ar output_file
134The file to which to write the output.
135.It Fl R Ar entries
136The number of empty reservation table entries to pad the table with.
137This is
138useful if you are generating a device tree blob for bootloader or similar that
139needs to reserve some memory before passing control to the operating system.
140.It Fl S Ar bytes
141The minimum size in bytes of the blob.
142The blob will be padded after the strings table to ensure that it is the
143correct size.
144This is useful for environments where the device tree blob must be modified in
145place.
146.It Fl p Ar bytes
147The number of bytes of padding to add to the blob.
148The blob will be padded after the strings table to ensure that it is the
149correct size.
150This is useful for environments where the device tree blob must be modified in
151place.
152.It Fl W Ar [no-]checker_name
153Enable or disable a specified checker.
154This is an alias for
155.Fl E .
156.It Fl s
157Sorts the properties and nodes in the tree.
158This is mainly useful when using tools like
159.Xr diff 1
160to compare two device tree sources.
161.It Fl V Ar output_version
162The version of the format to output.
163This is only relevant for binary outputs, and only a value of 17 is currently
164supported.
165.It Fl v
166Display the tool version and exit.
167.It Ar input_file
168The source file.
169.El
170.Sh "ASM FORMAT"
171The assembly format defines several globals that can be referred to from other
172compilation units, in addition to any labels specified in the source.
173These are:
174.Pp
175.Bl -tag -width "dt_strings_start" -compact -offset indent
176.It dt_blob_start
177start of the device tree blob.
178.It dt_header
179start of the header, usually identical to the start of the blob.
180.It dt_reserve_map
181start of the reservation map.
182.It dt_struct_start
183start of the structure table.
184.It dt_struct_end
185end of the structure table.
186.It dt_strings_start
187start of the strings table.
188.It dt_strings_end
189end of the strings table.
190.It dt_blob_end
191end of the device tree blob.
192.El
193.Sh CHECKERS
194The utility provides a number of semantic checks on the correctness of the
195tree.
196These can be disabled with the
197.Fl W
198flag.
199For example,
200.Fl W Ar no-type-phandle
201will disable the phandle type check.
202The supported checks are:
203.Pp
204.Bl -tag -width "no-type-phandle" -compact -offset indent
205.It type-compatible
206Checks the type of the
207.Va compatible
208property.
209.It type-model
210Checks the type of the
211.Va model
212property.
213.It type-compatible
214Checks the type of the
215.Va compatible
216property.
217.It cells-attributes
218Checks that all nodes with children have both
219.Va #address-cells
220and
221.Va #size-cells
222properties.
223.El
224.Sh EXAMPLES
225The command:
226.Pp
227.Dl "dtc -o blob.S -O asm device.dts"
228.Pp
229will generate a
230.Pa blob.S
231file from the device tree source
232.Pa device.dts
233and print errors if any occur during parsing or property checking.
234The
235resulting file can be assembled and linked into a binary.
236.Pp
237The command:
238.Pp
239.Dl "dtc -o - -O dts -I dtb device.dtb"
240.Pp
241will write the device tree source for the device tree blob
242.Pa device.dtb
243to the standard output.
244This is useful when debugging device trees.
245.Sh COMPATIBILITY
246This utility is intended to be compatible with the device tree compiler
247provided by elinux.org.
248Currently, it implements the subset of features
249required to build FreeBSD and others that have been requested by FreeBSD
250developers.
251.Pp
252The
253.Ar fs
254input format is not supported.
255This builds a tree from a Linux
256.Pa  /proc/device-tree ,
257a file system hierarchy not found in FreeBSD, which instead exposes the DTB
258directly via a sysctl.
259.Pp
260The warnings and errors supported by the elinux.org tool are not documented.
261This tool supports the warnings described in the
262.Sx CHECKERS
263section.
264.Sh SEE ALSO
265.Xr fdt 4
266.Sh STANDARDS
267The device tree formats understood by this tool conform to the Power.org
268Standard for Embedded Power Architecture Platform Requirements
269.Pq Vt ePAPR ,
270except as noted in the
271.Sx BUGS
272section and with the following exceptions for compatibility with the elinux.org
273tool:
274.Pp
275.Bl -bullet -compact
276.It
277The target of cross references is defined to be a node name in the
278specification, but is in fact a label.
279.El
280.Pp
281The /include/ directive is not part of the standard, however it is implemented
282with the semantics compatible with the elinux.org tool.
283It must appear in the top level of a file, and imports a new root definition.
284If a file, plus all of its inclusions, contains multiple roots then they are
285merged.
286All nodes that are present in the second but not the first are imported.
287Any that appear in both are recursively merged, with properties from the second
288replacing those from the first and properties child nodes being recursively
289merged.
290.Sh HISTORY
291A dtc tool first appeared in
292.Fx 9.0 .
293This version of the tool first appeared in
294.Fx 10.0 .
295.Sh AUTHORS
296.An David T. Chisnall
297.Pp
298Note: The fact that the tool and the author share the same initials is entirely
299coincidental.
300.Sh BUGS
301The device tree compiler does not yet support the following features:
302.Pp
303.Bl -bullet -compact
304.It
305Labels in the middle of property values.
306This is only useful in the assembly output, and only vaguely useful there, so
307is unlikely to be added soon.
308.It
309Full paths, rather than labels, as the targets for phandles.
310This is not very hard to add, but will probably not be added until something
311actually needs it.
312.El
313.Pp
314The current version performs a very limited set of semantic checks on the tree.
315This will be improved in future versions.
316