Re: Documentation issues with some MBUS flags

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Hi Mauro,

Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
Em Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:45:45 +0300
Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> escreveu:

Hi Mauro,

Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
Hi Sylwester/Sakari,

While checking the docs for the V4L2 framework, I noticed something weird
Related to those two flags:

#define V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX                (1U << 0)
#define V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB           (1U << 1)

They were originally introduced by this changeset:

commit 291031192426bfc6ad4ab2eb9fa986025a926598
Author: Sylwester Nawrocki <s.nawrocki@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:   Thu May 17 14:33:30 2012 -0300

      [media] V4L: Add [get/set]_frame_desc subdev callbacks

      Add subdev callbacks for setting up parameters of the frame on media bus
      that are not exposed to user space directly. This is just an initial,
      mostly stub implementation. struct v4l2_mbus_frame_desc is intended
      to be extended with sub-structures specific to a particular hardware media
      bus. For now these new callbacks are used only to query or specify maximum
      size of a compressed or hybrid (container) media bus frame in octets.

      Signed-off-by: Sylwester Nawrocki <s.nawrocki@xxxxxxxxxxx>
      Signed-off-by: Kyungmin Park <kyungmin.park@xxxxxxxxxxx>
      Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@xxxxxxxxxx>

And the comments were modified by this one:

commit 174d6a39b07f51212c23a8e30a0440598d18392c
Author: Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:   Wed Dec 18 08:40:28 2013 -0300

      [media] v4l: V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB is about 1D DMA

      V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB intends to say the receiver must use 1D DMA to
      receive the image, as the format does not have line offsets. This typically
      includes all compressed formats.

      Signed-off-by: Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
      Cc: Sylwester Nawrocki <s.nawrocki@xxxxxxxxxxx>
      Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <m.chehab@xxxxxxxxxxx>

The problem is that the description of V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX
says that:
	Indicates the @length field specifies maximum data length.

But the description of the @length field says otherwise:
	* @length: number of octets per frame, valid if V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB

So, I decided to take a look on what the heck is that:

	$ git grep V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB
	include/media/v4l2-subdev.h:#define V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB                (1U << 1)
	include/media/v4l2-subdev.h: *                    %V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB.
	include/media/v4l2-subdev.h: * @length: number of octets per frame, valid if V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB

(nobody is using it)

And:

	$ git grep V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX
	drivers/media/i2c/m5mols/m5mols_core.c: fd->entry[0].flags = V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX;
	drivers/media/i2c/m5mols/m5mols_core.c: fd->entry[0].flags = V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX;
	include/media/v4l2-subdev.h:#define V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX             (1U << 0)

Only one driver is using it.

So, I'm thinking if are there any reason why to keep the
V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB, and what's the expected behavior
when V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX is found.

Could you shed some light?

There isn't really a problem that I could see here, except that the
m5mols driver should perhaps set the BLOB flag to indicate it's using
1-dimensional DMA.

Hmm... why both flags should be on? I mean, if they both have the
same meaning, we can get rid of one of them.


What comes to the flags, the LEN_MAX flag indicates that the length
specified in the frame descriptor is the maximum length whereas the real
amount of data could be less than that.

Not sure if I understood. Are you saying that, instead of:

  * @length: number of octets per frame, valid if V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_BLOB
  *	    is set

That statement is correct. It's just that you *may* have the LEN_MAX flag in addition to BLOB flag. The meaning of LEN_MAX isn't really defined without the BLOB flag at the moment.



It should be:

  * @length: number of octets per frame, valid if V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX
  *	    is set

as the description of V4L2_MBUS_FRAME_DESC_FL_LEN_MAX suggests?

The BLOB flag indicates
1-dimensional DMA, but no driver (yet) uses two-dimensional DMA with
frame descriptors. The patch adding two-dimensional support is here:

<URL:http://git.retiisi.org.uk/?p=~sailus/linux.git;a=commitdiff;h=b701bd4160410739b165e19327bb64ce25fc509d>

AFAIR I posted it to linux-media long time ago but the set currently is
still unfinished. It will be needed to add support for sensor embedded
data, for instance. Certain newer sensors also provide more distinct
types of data than the usual (embedded data and image data).

Well, if the feature using it was not merged, then we can just wipe it
out, re-adding when needed (or eventually changing to something else
if the current definition is not ok).

I'm ok with removing the BLOB flag.

--
Sakari Ailus
sakari.ailus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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