Move EasyDMA documentation to module level

embassy-nrf/src/lib.rs

@@ -1,3 +1,39 @@
+//! ## EasyDMA considerations
+//!
+//! On nRF chips, peripherals can use the so called EasyDMA feature to offload the task of interacting
+//! with peripherals. It takes care of sending/receiving data over a variety of bus protocols (TWI/I2C, UART, SPI).
+//! However, EasyDMA requires the buffers used to transmit and receive data to reside in RAM. Unfortunately, Rust
+//! slices will not always do so. The following example using the SPI peripheral shows a common situation where this might happen:
+//!
+//! ```no_run
+//! // As we pass a slice to the function whose contents will not ever change,
+//! // the compiler writes it into the flash and thus the pointer to it will
+//! // reference static memory. Since EasyDMA requires slices to reside in RAM,
+//! // this function call will fail.
+//! let result = spim.write_from_ram(&[1, 2, 3]);
+//! assert_eq!(result, Err(Error::DMABufferNotInDataMemory));
+//!
+//! // The data is still static and located in flash. However, since we are assigning
+//! // it to a variable, the compiler will load it into memory. Passing a reference to the
+//! // variable will yield a pointer that references dynamic memory, thus making EasyDMA happy.
+//! // This function call succeeds.
+//! let data = [1, 2, 3];
+//! let result = spim.write_from_ram(&data);
+//! assert!(result.is_ok());
+//! ```
+//!
+//! Each peripheral struct which uses EasyDMA ([`Spim`](spim::Spim), [`Uarte`](uarte::Uarte), [`Twim`](twim::Twim)) has two variants of their mutating functions:
+//! - Functions with the suffix (e.g. [`write_from_ram`](Spim::write_from_ram), [`transfer_from_ram`](Spim::transfer_from_ram)) will return an error if the passed slice does not reside in RAM.
+//! - Functions without the suffix (e.g. [`write`](Spim::write), [`transfer`](Spim::transfer)) will check whether the data is in RAM and copy it into memory prior to transmission.
+//!
+//! Since copying incurs a overhead, you are given the option to choose from `_from_ram` variants which will
+//! fail and notify you, or the more convenient versions without the suffix which are potentially a little bit
+//! more inefficient. Be aware that this overhead is not only in terms of instruction count but also in terms of memory usage
+//! as the methods without the suffix will be allocating a statically sized buffer (up to 512 bytes for the nRF52840).
+//!
+//! Note that the methods that read data like [`read`](spim::Spim::read) and [`transfer_in_place`](spim::Spim::transfer_in_place) do not have the corresponding `_from_ram` variants as
+//! mutable slices always reside in RAM.
+
 #![no_std]
 #![cfg_attr(
     feature = "nightly",

embassy-nrf/src/spim.rs

@@ -31,38 +31,7 @@ pub enum Error {
 
 /// Interface for the SPIM peripheral using EasyDMA to offload the transmission and reception workload.
 ///
-/// ## Data locality requirements
+/// For more details about EasyDMA, consult the module documentation.
-///
-/// On nRF chips, EasyDMA requires the buffers to reside in RAM. However, Rust
-/// slices will not always do so. Take the following example:
-///
-/// ```no_run
-/// // As we pass a slice to the function whose contents will not ever change,
-/// // the compiler writes it into the flash and thus the pointer to it will
-/// // reference static memory. Since EasyDMA requires slices to reside in RAM,
-/// // this function call will fail.
-/// let result = spim.write_from_ram(&[1, 2, 3]);
-/// assert_eq!(result, Error::DMABufferNotInDataMemory);
-///
-/// // The data is still static and located in flash. However, since we are assigning
-/// // it to a variable, the compiler will load it into memory. Passing a reference to the
-/// // variable will yield a pointer that references dynamic memory, thus making EasyDMA happy.
-/// // This function call succeeds.
-/// let data = [1, 2, 3];
-/// let result = spim.write_from_ram(&data);
-/// assert!(result.is_ok());
-/// ```
-///
-/// Each function in this struct has a `_from_ram` variant and one without this suffix.
-/// - Functions with the suffix (e.g. [`write_from_ram`](Spim::write_from_ram), [`transfer_from_ram`](Spim::transfer_from_ram)) will return an error if the passed slice does not reside in RAM.
-/// - Functions without the suffix (e.g. [`write`](Spim::write), [`transfer`](Spim::transfer)) will check whether the data is in RAM and copy it into memory prior to transmission.
-///
-/// Since copying incurs a overhead, you are given the option to choose from `_from_ram` variants which will
-/// fail and notify you, or the more convenient versions without the suffix which are potentially a little bit
-/// more inefficient.
-///
-/// Note that the [`read`](Spim::read) and [`transfer_in_place`](Spim::transfer_in_place) methods do not have the corresponding `_from_ram` variants as
-/// mutable slices always reside in RAM.
 pub struct Spim<'d, T: Instance> {
     phantom: PhantomData<&'d mut T>,
 }
@@ -325,7 +294,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Spim<'d, T> {
         self.blocking_inner(read, write)
     }
 
-    /// Same as [`blocking_transfer`](Spim::blocking_transfer) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM.
+    /// Same as [`blocking_transfer`](Spim::blocking_transfer) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub fn blocking_transfer_from_ram(
         &mut self,
         read: &mut [u8],
@@ -346,7 +315,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Spim<'d, T> {
         self.blocking_inner(&mut [], data)
     }
 
-    /// Same as [`blocking_write`](Spim::blocking_write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM.
+    /// Same as [`blocking_write`](Spim::blocking_write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub fn blocking_write_from_ram(&mut self, data: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.blocking_inner(&mut [], data)
     }
@@ -362,7 +331,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Spim<'d, T> {
         self.async_inner(read, write).await
     }
 
-    /// Same as [`transfer`](Spim::transfer) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM.
+    /// Same as [`transfer`](Spim::transfer) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub async fn transfer_from_ram(&mut self, read: &mut [u8], write: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.async_inner_from_ram(read, write).await
     }
@@ -378,7 +347,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Spim<'d, T> {
         self.async_inner(&mut [], data).await
     }
 
-    /// Same as [`write`](Spim::write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM.
+    /// Same as [`write`](Spim::write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub async fn write_from_ram(&mut self, data: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.async_inner_from_ram(&mut [], data).await
     }

embassy-nrf/src/twim.rs

@@ -64,7 +64,9 @@ pub enum Error {
     Overrun,
 }
 
-/// Interface to a TWIM instance.
+/// Interface to a TWIM instance using EasyDMA to offload the transmission and reception workload.
+///
+/// For more details about EasyDMA, consult the module documentation.
 pub struct Twim<'d, T: Instance> {
     phantom: PhantomData<&'d mut T>,
 }
@@ -432,6 +434,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Twim<'d, T> {
         Ok(())
     }
 
+    /// Same as [`blocking_write`](Twim::blocking_write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub fn blocking_write_from_ram(&mut self, address: u8, buffer: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.setup_write_from_ram(address, buffer, false)?;
         self.blocking_wait();
@@ -474,6 +477,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Twim<'d, T> {
         Ok(())
     }
 
+    /// Same as [`blocking_write_read`](Twim::blocking_write_read) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub fn blocking_write_read_from_ram(
         &mut self,
         address: u8,
@@ -507,6 +511,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Twim<'d, T> {
         Ok(())
     }
 
+    /// Same as [`write`](Twim::write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub async fn write_from_ram(&mut self, address: u8, buffer: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.setup_write_from_ram(address, buffer, true)?;
         self.async_wait().await;
@@ -531,6 +536,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Twim<'d, T> {
         Ok(())
     }
 
+    /// Same as [`write_read`](Twim::write_read) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub async fn write_read_from_ram(
         &mut self,
         address: u8,

embassy-nrf/src/uarte.rs

@@ -60,7 +60,9 @@ pub enum Error {
     // TODO: add other error variants.
 }
 
-/// Interface to the UARTE peripheral
+/// Interface to the UARTE peripheral using EasyDMA to offload the transmission and reception workload.
+///
+/// For more details about EasyDMA, consult the module documentation.
 pub struct Uarte<'d, T: Instance> {
     phantom: PhantomData<&'d mut T>,
     tx: UarteTx<'d, T>,
@@ -224,6 +226,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Uarte<'d, T> {
         self.tx.write(buffer).await
     }
 
+    /// Same as [`write`](Uarte::write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub async fn write_from_ram(&mut self, buffer: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.tx.write_from_ram(buffer).await
     }
@@ -236,6 +239,7 @@ impl<'d, T: Instance> Uarte<'d, T> {
         self.tx.blocking_write(buffer)
     }
 
+    /// Same as [`blocking_write`](Uarte::blocking_write) but will fail instead of copying data into RAM. Consult the module level documentation to learn more.
     pub fn blocking_write_from_ram(&mut self, buffer: &[u8]) -> Result<(), Error> {
         self.tx.blocking_write_from_ram(buffer)
     }