On Mon, 6 Jun 2011, Sakari Ailus wrote:
> Hi Guennadi,
>
> On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 03:10:54PM +0200, Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > On Wed, 18 May 2011, Sakari Ailus wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Guennadi and Laurent,
> > >
> > > Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 18 May 2011, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> On Tuesday 17 May 2011 07:52:28 Sakari Ailus wrote:
> > > >>> Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > > >
> > > > [snip]
> > > >
> > > >>>>> What about making it possible to pass an array of buffer indices to
> > > >>>>> the
> > > >>>>> user, just like VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS does? I'm not sure if this would
> > > >>>>> be
> > > >>>>> perfect, but it would avoid the problem of requiring continuous
> > > >>>>> ranges
> > > >>>>> of buffer ids.
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> struct v4l2_create_buffers {
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> __u32 *index;
> > > >>>>> __u32 count;
> > > >>>>> __u32 flags;
> > > >>>>> enum v4l2_memory memory;
> > > >>>>> __u32 size;
> > > >>>>> struct v4l2_format format;
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> };
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> Index would be a pointer to an array of buffer indices and its
> > > >>>>> length
> > > >>>>> would be count.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> I don't understand this. We do _not_ want to allow holes in indices.
> > > >>>> For
> > > >>>> now we decide to not implement DESTROY at all. In this case indices
> > > >>>> just
> > > >>>> increment contiguously.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> The next stage is to implement DESTROY, but only in strict reverse
> > > >>>> order
> > > >>>> - without holes and in the same ranges, as buffers have been CREATEd
> > > >>>> before. So, I really don't understand why we need arrays, sorry.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Well, now that we're defining a second interface to make new buffer
> > > >>> objects, I just thought it should be made as future-proof as we can.
> > > >>
> > > >> I second that. I don't like rushing new APIs to find out we need
> > > >> something
> > > >> else after 6 months.
> > > >
> > > > Ok, so, we pass an array from user-space with CREATE of size count. The
> > > > kernel fills it with as many buffers entries as it has allocated. But
> > > > currently drivers are also allowed to allocate more buffers, than the
> > > > user-space has requested. What do we do in such a case?
> > >
> > > That's a good point.
> > >
> > > But even if there was no array, shouldn't the user be allowed to create
> > > the buffers using a number of separate CREATE_BUF calls? The result
> > > would be still the same n buffers as with a single call allocating the n
> > > buffers at once.
> > >
> > > Also, consider the (hopefully!) forthcoming DMA buffer management API
> > > patches. It looks like that those buffers will be referred to by file
> > > handles. To associate several DMA buffer objects to V4L2 buffers at
> > > once, there would have to be an array of those objects.
> > >
> > > <URL:http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-media/msg32448.html>
> >
> > So, does this mean now, that we have to wait for those APIs to become
> > solid before or even implemented we proceed with this one?
>
> No. But I think we should take into account the foreseeable future. Any
> which form the buffer id passing mechanism will take, it will very likely
> involve referring to individual memory buffers the ids of which are not
> contiguous ranges in a general case. In short, my point is that CREATE_BUF
> should allow associating generic buffer ids to V4L2 buffers.
Ok, so, first point is: yes, it can well happen, that video buffers will
use some further buffer allocator as a back-end, that each videobuf will
possibly reference more than one of those memory buffers, and that those
memory buffers will have arbitrary IDs. AFAIC, this so far doesn't affect
our design of the CREATE ioctl(), right? As you say, both indices are
unrelated.
I can imagine, that in the future, when we implement DESTROY, videobuf
indices can become sparse. Say, if then we have indices 3 to 5 allocated,
and the user requests 4 buffers. We can either use indices 0-2 and 6, or
6-9. Personally, I would go with the latter option. Maybe we'll have to
increase or completely eliminate the VIDEO_MAX_FRAME. But otherwise I
think, this would be the best way to handle this. Which means, our CREATE
ioctl() with contiguous indics should be fine. As for DESTROY, the idea
was to only allow destroying same sets of buffers, that have been
previously allocated with one CREATE, i.e., it will also only take
contiguous index sets. Am I still missing anything?
> If the hardware requires more than one buffer to operate, STREAMON could
> return ERANGE in a case there ane not enough queued, for example.
Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
Freelance Open-Source Software Developer
http://www.open-technology.de/
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