[RFC] Video events, version 2.1

[Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@maxwell.research.nokia.com>]

Hi,


Here's the version 2.1 of the video events RFC. It's based on Laurent
Pinchart's original RFC and version 2 which I wrote some time ago. This 
time the changes are done based on discussion on the list. The old RFC 
is available here:

<URL:http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-media/msg10971.html>

(Cc:d to Mike Krufky and Devin Heitmueller, too.)

Changes to version 2
--------------------

#define V4L2_EVENT_ALL

VIDIOC_G_EVENT -> VIDIOC_DQEVENT

Event enumeration is gone.

Reserved fields moved before data in v4l2_event and now there are 8 of 
them instead of 4.

Event (un)subscription argument is now v4l2_event_subscription.

Interface description
---------------------

Event type is either a standard event or private event. Standard events
will be defined in videodev2.h. Private event types begin from
V4L2_EVENT_PRIVATE. Some high order bits will be reserved for future use.

#define V4L2_EVENT_ALL			0x07ffffff
#define V4L2_EVENT_PRIVATE_START	0x08000000
#define V4L2_EVENT_RESERVED		0x10000000

VIDIOC_DQEVENT is used to get events. count is number of pending events 
after the current one. sequence is the event type sequence number and 
the data is specific to event type.

The user will get the information that there's an event through
exception file descriptors by using select(2). When an event is
available the poll handler sets POLLPRI which wakes up select. -EINVAL
will be returned if there are no pending events.

VIDIOC_SUBSCRIBE_EVENT and VIDIOC_UNSUBSCRIBE_EVENT are used to
subscribe and unsubscribe from events. The argument is struct 
v4l2_event_subscription which now only contains the type field for the 
event type. Every event can be subscribed or unsubscribed by one ioctl 
by using special type V4L2_EVENT_ALL.


struct v4l2_event {
	__u32		count;
	__u32		type;
	__u32		sequence;
	struct timeval	timestamp;
	__u32		reserved[8];
	__u8		data[64];
};

struct v4l2_event_subscription {
	__u32		type;
	__u32		reserved[8];
};

#define VIDIOC_DQEVENT		_IOR('V', 84, struct v4l2_event)
#define VIDIOC_SUBSCRIBE_EVENT	_IOW('V', 85, struct
				     v4l2_event_subscription)
#define VIDIOC_UNSUBSCRIBE_EVENT _IOW('V', 86, struct
				      v4l2_event_subscription)


The size of the event queue is decided by the driver. Which events will 
be discarded on queue overflow depends on the implementation.


Questions
---------

One more question I have is that there can be situations that the 
application wants to know something has happened but does not want an 
explicit notification from that. So it gets an event from VIDIOC_DQEVENT 
but does not want to get woken up for that reason. I guess one flag in 
event subscription should do that. Perhaps that is something that should 
be implemented when needed, though.

Are there enough reserved fields now? How about the event type high 
order bits split?

What should we really call v4l2_event_subscription? A better name for 
the structure would be perhaps favourable.


Comments and questions are still very very welcome.

-- 
Sakari Ailus
sakari.ailus@maxwell.research.nokia.com