nuttx/Documentation/os/conventions.rst
Vinicius May f6ecf80ebb Documentation: brand new layout for NuttX documentation.
The documentation grew one page at a time, so the tree follows the
history of who wrote what and not the shape of NuttX. Scheduling is
spread over three places, a driver page can sit above the subsystem
that owns it, and the front page lists everything at the same level.
That is a lot to face when all you want to know is where the scheduler
lives.

This change files every page under the code it describes. It is a move,
not a rewrite: outside the ten pages named below, every page keeps the
text that is already in master, and no page's text is deleted.

What it does:

* Groups the table of contents into nine chapters.
* Moves the OS subsystems under os/: scheduling, memory, drivers,
  filesystem, networking, IPC, interrupts, libs, time.
* Renames the platform pages to the names the source tree uses, and
  derives their tags from the tree instead of by hand.
* Splits guides/ by subject.
* Adds Documentation/redirects.py, with a rule for every page that left
  its old path, so old URLs keep working. The redirect page also carries
  a link's #anchor across to the new page.

Ten pages have text that is new or rewritten. Nine of them are the
landing page of a chapter, which has to exist for the new structure:

    index                  the front page
    os/index               OS Design
    os/scheduling/index    Scheduling
    os/interrupts/index    Interrupts
    os/ipc/index           IPC
    os/time/index          Time and timers
    about/index            About
    developing/index       Developing NuttX
    ReleaseNotes/index     Release notes

The tenth is os/libs/libbuiltin, the only page here with technical
content: libs/libbuiltin/ had no page at all. Five SVG diagrams come
with these pages, hand-written XML with no editor metadata.

Nothing outside Documentation/ is touched.

How it was checked:

* Sphinx builds with -W: no warnings, and no document left outside a
  toctree.
* A script, offered in the PR, proves the narrow claim this rests on.
  For every page outside the ten named above it erases what a move
  touches -- link target, path, tag line, toctree block, table border --
  from the whole old text and the whole new text, and requires the two
  to be byte for byte identical. It also requires every sentence of a
  deleted page to turn up somewhere, and every page that left its old
  path to have a redirect, from a URL that existed, to where its content
  went. It exits non-zero and names the page if any of that is not true,
  and it tests added pages too, so forgetting to declare one cannot make
  it pass.
* An independent audit checked 133 factual claims on these ten pages
  against the tree, one shell command per claim: 130 confirmed, 1
  refuted and fixed here, 2 not checkable.
* tools/checkpatch.sh is clean over the range.

The diff is large because moving a page changes every link that points
to it. Most of it is pure renames, and board pages that gained one tag
line.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5
2026-10-08 01:40:54 +08:00

100 lines
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ReStructuredText

==================================
Naming and Header File Conventions
==================================
- **Common Microprocessor Interfaces**. Any interface that is
common to all microprocessors should be prefixed with ``up_``
and prototyped in ``include/nuttx/arch.h``. The definitions in
that header file provide the common interface between NuttX and
the architecture-specific implementation in ``arch/``.
``up_`` is supposed to stand for microprocessor; the ``u``
is like the Greek letter micron: μ. So it would be ``μP``
which is a common shortening of the word microprocessor. I
don't like that name very much. I wish I would have used a
more obvious prefix like ``arch_`` instead -- then I would
not have to answer this question so often.
- **Microprocessor-Specific Interfaces**. An interface which is
unique to a certain microprocessor should be prefixed with the
name of the microprocessor, for example ``stm32_``, and be
prototyped in some header file in the ``arch/`` directories.
There is also a ``arch/<architecture>/include/<chip>/chip.h``
header file that can be used to communicate other
microprocessor-specific information between the board logic and
even application logic. Application logic may, for example,
need to know specific capabilities of the chip. Prototypes in
that ``chip.h`` header file should follow the
microprocessor-specific naming convention.
- **Common Board Interfaces**. Any interface that is common to
all boards should be prefixed with ``board_`` and should also
be prototyped in ``include/nuttx/board.h``. These ``board_``
definitions provide the interface between the board-level logic
and the commaon and architecture-specific logic.
- **Board-Specific Interfaces**. Any interface which is unique to
a board should be prefixed with the board name, for example
``stm32f4discovery_``. Sometimes the board name is too long so
``stm32_`` would be okay too. These should be prototyped in
``boards/<arch>/<chip>/<board>/src/<board>.h`` and should not
be used outside of that directory since board-specific
definitions have no meaning outside of the board directory.
- **Scope of Inclusions**. Header files are made accessible to
internal OS logic and to applications through symbolic links
and through *include paths* that are provided to the C/C++
compiler. Through these include paths, the NuttX build system
also enforces modularity in the design. For example, one
important design principle is architectural *layering*. In this
case I am referring to the OS as layered into application
interface, common internal OS logic, and lower level
platform-specific layers. The platform-specific layers all
reside in the either ``arch/`` sub-directories or the
``boards/`` subdirectories: The former sub-directories are
reserved for microcontroller-specific logic and the latter for
board-specific logic.
In the strict, layered NuttX architecture, the upper level OS
services are always available to platform-specific logic.
However, the opposite is *not* true: Common OS logic must never
have any dependency on the lower level platform-specific code.
The OS logic must be totally agnostic about its hardware
environment. Similarly, microcontroller-specific logic was be
completely ignorant of board-specific logic.
This strict layering is enforced in the NuttX build system by
controlling the compiler include paths: Higher level code can
never include header files from either of the
platform-specific source directories; microcontroller-specific
code can never include header files from the board-specific
source directories. The board-specific directories are, then,
at the bottom of the layered hierarchy.
An exception to these inclusion restrictions is the
platform-specific *include/*. These are made available to
higher level OS logic. The microcontroller-specific include
directory will be linked at ``include/arch/chip`` and, hence,
can be included like ``#include <arch/hardware/chip.h``.
Similarly, the board-specific include directory will be linked
at ``include/arch/board`` and, hence, can be included like
``#include <arch/board/board.h``.
Keeping in the spirit of the layered architecture, these
publicly visible header files must *not* export
platform-specific definitions; Only platform-specific
realizations of standardized declarations should be visible.
Those *standardized declarations* should appear in common
header files such as those provided by ``include/nuttx/arch.h``
and ``include/nuttx/board.h``. Similarly, these publicly
visible header file must *not* include files that reside in the
inaccessible platform-specific source directories. For example,
the board-specific
``boards/<arch>/<chip>/<board>/include/board.h`` header file
must never include microcontroller-specific header files that
reside in ``arch/<arch>/src/<mcu>``. That practice will cause
inclusion failures when the publicly visible file is included
in common logic outside of the platform-specific source
directories.