On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 3:36 AM, Perr Zhang [off-list ref] wrote:

source code:

MODULE_ALIAS("platform:sm501");

static const struct of_device_id of_sm501_match_tbl[] = {
    { .compatible = "smi,sm501", },
    { /* end */ }
};
MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE(of, of_sm501_match_tbl);

location: http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/mfd/sm501.c#L1711

Since there is the MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE(), why  the author additionally adds the MODULE_ALIAS()?
What exactly is this MODULE_ALIAS() used for?

MODULE_ALIAS() adds some more info for the userspace programs. In
/lib/modules/VERSION/modules.alias you can see the aliases that were parsed from
the modules. In your case, running `modprobe platform:sm501` would insert the
sm501 module.

Thanks,
Giedrius