xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/dtc/dtc.1 (revision 38f0b757fd84d17d0fc24739a7cda160c4516d81)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2013 David Chisnall
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5.\" This software was developed by SRI International and the University of
6.\" Cambridge Computer Laboratory under DARPA/AFRL contract (FA8750-10-C-0237)
7.\" ("CTSRD"), as part of the DARPA CRASH research programme.
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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.Op Fl P Ar predefined_properties
55.Ar input_file
56.Sh DESCRIPTION
57The
58.Nm
59utility converts flattened device tree (FDT) representations.
60 It is most commonly used to generate device tree blobs (DTB), the binary
61representation of an FDT, from device tree sources (DTS), the ASCII text source
62representation.
63.Pp
64The binary can be written in two formats, binary and assembly.
65The binary is identical to the in-memory representation and can be used
66directly by firmware, loaders, and so on.
67The assembly format, documented in
68.Sx "ASM FORMAT" ,
69will produce the same binary format when assembled, but also includes some
70global variables that refer to parts of the table.
71This format is most commonly used to produce a kernel specific to a device,
72with the device tree blob compiled in.
73.Pp
74The options are as follows:
75.Bl -tag -width indent
76.It Fl d Ar dependency_file
77Writes a dependency file understandable by make to the specified file.
78This file can be included in a Makefile and will ensure that the output file
79depends on the input file and any files that it includes.
80This argument is only useful when the input is DTS, as only the source format
81has a notion of inclusions.
82.It Fl E Ar [no-]checker_name
83Enable or disable a specified checker.
84The argument is the name of the checker.
85The full list of checkers is given in
86.Sx CHECKERS .
87.It Fl f
88Force the tool to attempt to generate the output, even if the input had errors.
89.It Fl h
90Display the help text and exit.
91.It Fl H Ar phandle_format
92Specifies the type of phandle nodes to generate in the output.
93Valid values are:
94.Pp
95.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
96.It Ar linux
97Generate the legacy linux,phandle nodes expected by older systems.
98.It Ar epapr
99Generate the phandle nodes, as described in the ePAPR specification.
100This is the most sensible option for device trees being used with
101.Fx .
102.It Ar both
103Generate both, for maximum compatibility.
104.El
105.It Fl I Ar input_format
106Specifies the input format.
107Valid values are:
108.Pp
109.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
110.It Ar dtb
111Device tree blob.
112The binary representation of the FDT.
113.It Ar dts
114Device tree source.
115The ASCII representation of the FDT.
116This is the default if the input format is not explicitly stated.
117.El
118.It Fl O Ar output_format
119Specifies the output format.
120Valid values are:
121.Pp
122.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
123.It Ar asm
124Assembler source for generating a device tree blob, as described in
125.Sx "ASM FORMAT" .
126.It Ar dtb
127Device tree blob.
128The binary representation of the FDT.
129This is the default if the output format is not explicitly stated.
130.It Ar dts
131Device tree source.
132The ASCII representation of the FDT.
133.El
134.It Fl o Ar output_file
135The file to which to write the output.
136.It Fl P Ar predefined_macro
137Defines a macro, in the form
138.Ar name=value
139or
140.Ar name
141to be used for device tree source files that contain conditional components.
142This tool supports two extensions to the standard to support conditional
143compilation of device trees.
144The first is an
145.Ar /include/if [property]/ "file.dts"
146directive that is allowed at the start of a file and which will only include
147the specified file if it the specified property is passed with this flag.
148The second is the
149.Ar $NAME
150format for property values.
151These allow property value to be specified on the command line.
152.It Fl R Ar entries
153The number of empty reservation table entries to pad the table with.
154This is
155useful if you are generating a device tree blob for bootloader or similar that
156needs to reserve some memory before passing control to the operating system.
157.It Fl S Ar bytes
158The minimum size in bytes of the blob.
159The blob will be padded after the strings table to ensure that it is the
160correct size.
161This is useful for environments where the device tree blob must be modified in
162place.
163.It Fl p Ar bytes
164The number of bytes of padding to add to the blob.
165The blob will be padded after the strings table to ensure that it is the
166correct size.
167This is useful for environments where the device tree blob must be modified in
168place.
169.It Fl W Ar [no-]checker_name
170Enable or disable a specified checker.
171This is an alias for
172.Fl E .
173.It Fl s
174Sorts the properties and nodes in the tree.
175This is mainly useful when using tools like
176.Xr diff 1
177to compare two device tree sources.
178.It Fl V Ar output_version
179The version of the format to output.
180This is only relevant for binary outputs, and only a value of 17 is currently
181supported.
182.It Fl v
183Display the tool version and exit.
184.It Ar input_file
185The source file.
186.El
187.Sh "ASM FORMAT"
188The assembly format defines several globals that can be referred to from other
189compilation units, in addition to any labels specified in the source.
190These are:
191.Pp
192.Bl -tag -width "dt_strings_start" -compact -offset indent
193.It dt_blob_start
194start of the device tree blob.
195.It dt_header
196start of the header, usually identical to the start of the blob.
197.It dt_reserve_map
198start of the reservation map.
199.It dt_struct_start
200start of the structure table.
201.It dt_struct_end
202end of the structure table.
203.It dt_strings_start
204start of the strings table.
205.It dt_strings_end
206end of the strings table.
207.It dt_blob_end
208end of the device tree blob.
209.El
210.Sh CHECKERS
211The utility provides a number of semantic checks on the correctness of the
212tree.
213These can be disabled with the
214.Fl W
215flag.
216For example,
217.Fl W Ar no-type-phandle
218will disable the phandle type check.
219The supported checks are:
220.Pp
221.Bl -tag -width "no-type-phandle" -compact -offset indent
222.It type-compatible
223Checks the type of the
224.Va compatible
225property.
226.It type-model
227Checks the type of the
228.Va model
229property.
230.It type-compatible
231Checks the type of the
232.Va compatible
233property.
234.It cells-attributes
235Checks that all nodes with children have both
236.Va #address-cells
237and
238.Va #size-cells
239properties.
240.El
241.Sh EXAMPLES
242The command:
243.Pp
244.Dl "dtc -o blob.S -O asm device.dts"
245.Pp
246will generate a
247.Pa blob.S
248file from the device tree source
249.Pa device.dts
250and print errors if any occur during parsing or property checking.
251The
252resulting file can be assembled and linked into a binary.
253.Pp
254The command:
255.Pp
256.Dl "dtc -o - -O dts -I dtb device.dtb"
257.Pp
258will write the device tree source for the device tree blob
259.Pa device.dtb
260to the standard output.
261This is useful when debugging device trees.
262.Sh COMPATIBILITY
263This utility is intended to be compatible with the device tree compiler
264provided by elinux.org.
265Currently, it implements the subset of features
266required to build FreeBSD and others that have been requested by FreeBSD
267developers.
268.Pp
269The
270.Ar fs
271input format is not supported.
272This builds a tree from a Linux
273.Pa  /proc/device-tree ,
274a file system hierarchy not found in FreeBSD, which instead exposes the DTB
275directly via a sysctl.
276.Pp
277The warnings and errors supported by the elinux.org tool are not documented.
278This tool supports the warnings described in the
279.Sx CHECKERS
280section.
281.Sh SEE ALSO
282.Xr fdt 4
283.Sh STANDARDS
284The device tree formats understood by this tool conform to the Power.org
285Standard for Embedded Power Architecture Platform Requirements
286.Pq Vt ePAPR ,
287except as noted in the
288.Sx BUGS
289section and with the following exceptions for compatibility with the elinux.org
290tool:
291.Pp
292.Bl -bullet -compact
293.It
294The target of cross references is defined to be a node name in the
295specification, but is in fact a label.
296.El
297.Pp
298The /include/ directive is not part of the standard, however it is implemented
299with the semantics compatible with the elinux.org tool.
300It must appear in the top level of a file, and imports a new root definition.
301If a file, plus all of its inclusions, contains multiple roots then they are
302merged.
303All nodes that are present in the second but not the first are imported.
304Any that appear in both are recursively merged, with properties from the second
305replacing those from the first and properties child nodes being recursively
306merged.
307.Sh HISTORY
308A dtc tool first appeared in
309.Fx 9.0 .
310This version of the tool first appeared in
311.Fx 10.0 .
312.Sh AUTHORS
313.An David T. Chisnall
314.Pp
315Note: The fact that the tool and the author share the same initials is entirely
316coincidental.
317.Sh BUGS
318The device tree compiler does not yet support the following features:
319.Pp
320.Bl -bullet -compact
321.It
322Labels in the middle of property values.
323This is only useful in the assembly output, and only vaguely useful there, so
324is unlikely to be added soon.
325.It
326Full paths, rather than labels, as the targets for phandles.
327This is not very hard to add, but will probably not be added until something
328actually needs it.
329.El
330.Pp
331The current version performs a very limited set of semantic checks on the tree.
332This will be improved in future versions.
333