Below is most simple, intuitive and matching with core APIs for name and design pattern wise. init() { err = ancillary_device_initialize(); if (err) return ret; err = ancillary_device_add(); if (ret) goto err_unwind; err = some_foo(); if (err) goto err_foo; return 0; err_foo: ancillary_device_del(adev); err_unwind: ancillary_device_put(adev->dev); return err; } cleanup() { ancillary_device_de(adev); ancillary_device_put(adev); /* It is common to have a one wrapper for this as ancillary_device_unregister(). * This will match with core device_unregister() that has precise documentation. * but given fact that init() code need proper error unwinding, like above, * it make sense to have two APIs, and no need to export another symbol for unregister(). * This pattern is very easy to audit and code. */ }I like this flow +1 But ... since the init() function is performing both device_init and device_add - it should probably be called ancillary_device_register, and we are back to a single exported API for both register and unregister.
Kind reminder that we introduced the two functions to allow the caller to know if it needed to free memory when initialize() fails, and it didn't need to free memory when add() failed since put_device() takes care of it. If you have a single init() function it's impossible to know which behavior to select on error.
I also have a case with SoundWire where it's nice to first initialize, then set some data and then add.
At that point, do we need wrappers on the primitives init, add, del, and put? -DaveE
