lib: introduce common method to convert hex digits

hex_to_bin() is a little method which converts hex digit to its actual
value.  There are plenty of places where such functionality is needed.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: use tolower(), saving 3 bytes, test the more common case first - it's quicker]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: relocate tolower to make it even faster! (Joe)]
Signed-off-by: Andy Shevchenko <ext-andriy.shevchenko@nokia.com>
Cc: Tilman Schmidt <tilman@imap.cc>
Cc: Duncan Sands <duncan.sands@free.fr>
Cc: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Cc: "Richard Russon (FlatCap)" <ldm@flatcap.org>
Cc: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
Cc: Len Brown <lenb@kernel.org>
Cc: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

include/linux/kernel.h

@@ -375,6 +375,8 @@ static inline char *pack_hex_byte(char *buf, u8 byte)
 	return buf;
 }
 
+extern int hex_to_bin(char ch);
+
 #ifndef pr_fmt
 #define pr_fmt(fmt) fmt
 #endif

lib/hexdump.c

@@ -15,6 +15,24 @@
 const char hex_asc[] = "0123456789abcdef";
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(hex_asc);
 
+/**
+ * hex_to_bin - convert a hex digit to its real value
+ * @ch: ascii character represents hex digit
+ *
+ * hex_to_bin() converts one hex digit to its actual value or -1 in case of bad
+ * input.
+ */
+int hex_to_bin(char ch)
+{
+	if ((ch >= '0') && (ch <= '9'))
+		return ch - '0';
+	ch = tolower(ch);
+	if ((ch >= 'a') && (ch <= 'f'))
+		return ch - 'a' + 10;
+	return -1;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(hex_to_bin);
+
 /**
  * hex_dump_to_buffer - convert a blob of data to "hex ASCII" in memory
  * @buf: data blob to dump