.. _dt-bindings:

Devicetree bindings
###################

A devicetree on its own is only half the story for describing hardware. The
devicetree format itself is relatively unstructured, and doesn't tell the
:ref:`build system <build_overview>` which pieces of information in a
particular devicetree are useful to :ref:`device drivers <device_model_api>` or
:ref:`applications <application>`.

*Devicetree bindings* provide the other half of this information. Zephyr
devicetree bindings are YAML files in a custom format (Zephyr does not use the
dt-schema tools used by the Linux kernel). The build system uses bindings
when generating code for :ref:`dt-from-c`.

.. _dt-binding-compat:

Mapping nodes to bindings
*************************

During the :ref:`build_configuration_phase`, the build system tries to map each
node in the devicetree to a binding file. The build system only generates
macros for devicetree nodes which have matching bindings. Nodes are mapped to
bindings by their :ref:`compatible properties <dt-syntax>`. Take the following
node as an example:

.. code-block:: DTS

   bar-device {
   	compatible = "foo-company,bar-device";
   	/* ... */
   };

The build system will try to map the ``bar-device`` node to a YAML binding with
this ``compatible:`` line:

.. code-block:: yaml

   compatible: "foo-company,bar-device"

Built-in bindings are stored in :zephyr_file:`dts/bindings/`. Binding file
names usually match their ``compatible:`` lines, so the above binding would be
named :file:`foo-company,bar-device.yaml`.

If a node has more than one string in its ``compatible`` property, the build
system looks for compatible bindings in the listed order and uses the first
match. Take this node as an example:

.. code-block:: DTS

   baz-device {
   	compatible = "foo-company,baz-device", "generic-baz-device";
   };

The ``baz-device`` node would get mapped to the binding for compatible
``"generic-baz-device"`` if the build system can't find a binding for
``"foo-company,baz-device"``.

Nodes without compatible properties can be mapped to bindings associated with
their parent nodes. For an example, see the ``pwmleds`` node in the bindings
file format described below.

If a node describes hardware on a bus, like I2C or SPI, then the bus type is
also taken into account when mapping nodes to bindings. See the comments near
``on-bus:`` in the bindings syntax for details.

Bindings file syntax
********************

Below is a template that shows the Zephyr bindings file syntax. It is stored in
:zephyr_file:`dts/binding-template.yaml`.

.. literalinclude:: ../../../dts/binding-template.yaml
   :language: yaml