Re: [RFCv4 PATCH 1/8] tuner-core: rename check_mode to supported_mode

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Em 13-06-2011 09:07, Hans Verkuil escreveu:
> On Monday, June 13, 2011 13:45:14 Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>> Em 13-06-2011 07:23, Hans Verkuil escreveu:
>>> On Monday, June 13, 2011 00:06:19 Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>>>> Em 12-06-2011 15:09, Hans Verkuil escreveu:
>>>>> On Sunday, June 12, 2011 19:27:21 Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>>>>>> Em 12-06-2011 13:07, Hans Verkuil escreveu:
>>>>>>> On Sunday, June 12, 2011 16:37:55 Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>>>>>>>> Em 12-06-2011 07:59, Hans Verkuil escreveu:
>>>>>>>>> From: Hans Verkuil <hans.verkuil@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The check_mode function checks whether a mode is supported. So calling it
>>>>>>>>> supported_mode is more appropriate. In addition it returned either 0 or
>>>>>>>>> -EINVAL which suggests that the -EINVAL error should be passed on. However,
>>>>>>>>> that's not the case so change the return type to bool.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I prefer to keep returning -EINVAL. This is the proper thing to do, and
>>>>>>>> to return the result to the caller. A fixme should be added though, so,
>>>>>>>> after someone add a subdev call that would properly handle the -EINVAL
>>>>>>>> code for multiple tuners, the functions should return the error code
>>>>>>>> instead of 0.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> No, you can't return -EINVAL here. It is the responsibility of the bridge
>>>>>>> driver to determine whether there is e.g. a radio tuner. So if one of these
>>>>>>> tuner subdevs is called with mode radio while it is a tv tuner, then that
>>>>>>> is not an error, but instead it is a request that can safely be ignored
>>>>>>> as not relevant for that tuner. It is up to the bridge driver to ensure
>>>>>>> that a tuner is loaded that is actually valid for the radio mode.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Subdev ops should only return errors when there is a real problem (e.g. i2c
>>>>>>> errors) and should just return 0 if a request is not for them.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's why I posted these first two patches: these functions suggest that you
>>>>>>> can return an error if the mode doesn't match when you really cannot.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If I call v4l2_device_call_until_err() for e.g. s_frequency, then the error
>>>>>>> that is returned should match a real error (e.g. an i2c error), not that one
>>>>>>> of the tv tuners refused the radio mode. I know there is a radio tuner somewhere,
>>>>>>> otherwise there wouldn't be a /dev/radio node.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I firmly believe that the RFCv4 series is correct and just needs an additional
>>>>>>> patch adding some documentation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That said, it would make sense to move the first three patches to the end
>>>>>>> instead if you prefer. Since these are cleanups, not bug fixes like the others.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The errors at tuner should be propagated. If there's just one tuner, the error
>>>>>> code should just be returned by the ioctl. But, if there are two tuners, if the bridge 
>>>>>> driver calls G_TUNER (or any other tuner subdev call) and both tuners return -EINVAL, 
>>>>>> then it needs to return -EINVAL to userspace. If just one returns -EINVAL, and the 
>>>>>> other tuner returns 0, then it should return 0. So, it is about the opposite behaviour 
>>>>>> implemented at v4l2_device_call_until_err().
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry, but no, that's not true. You are trying to use the error codes from tuner
>>>>> subdevs to determine whether none of the tuner subdevs support a certain tuner mode.
>>>>
>>>> Not only that. There are some cases where the tuner driver may not bind for some reason.
>>>> So, even if the bridge driver does support a certain mode, a call to G_TUNER may fail
>>>> (for example, if tea5767 probe failed). Only with a proper return code, the bridge driver
>>>> can detect if the driver found some issue.
>>>
>>> Surely, that's an error reported by tuner_probe, isn't it? That's supposed to ensure
>>> that the tuner driver was loaded and initialized correctly. I'm not sure if it does,
>>> but that's definitely where any errors of that kind should be reported.
>>>
>>> Looking at it some more, it seems to me that s_type_addr should also return an
>>> error if there are problems. Ditto for tuner_s_config.
>>>
>>> An alternative solution is to keep a 'initialized' boolean that is set to true
>>> once the tuner is fully configured. If g_tuner et al are called when the tuner
>>> is not fully configured, then you can return -ENODEV or -EIO or something like that.
>>
>> NACK. This would be just an ugly workaround. 
> 
> Agreed :-)
> 
>>
>>> But that's a separate status check and has nothing to do with mode checking.
>>>
>>>>> E.g., you want to change something for a radio tuner and there are no radio tuner
>>>>> subdevs. But that's the job of the bridge driver to check. That has the overview,
>>>>> the lowly subdevs do not. The subdevs just filter the ops and check the mode to see
>>>>> if they should handle it and ignore it otherwise.
>>>>>
>>>>> Only if they have to handle it will they return a possible error. The big problem
>>>>> with trying to use subdev errors codes for this is that you don't see the difference
>>>>> between a real error of a subdev (e.g. -EIO when an i2c access fails) and a subdev
>>>>> that returns -EINVAL just because it didn't understand the tuner mode.
>>>>>
>>>>> So the bridge may return -EINVAL to the application instead of the real error, which
>>>>> is -EIO.
>>>>
>>>> An -EIO would also be discarded, as errors at v4l2_device_call_all() calls don't return
>>>> anything. So, currently, the bridge has to assume that no errors happened and return 0.
>>>
>>> Obviously, v4l2_device_call_all calls should be replaced with v4l2_device_call_until_err.
>>> I've no problem with that.
>>
>> See bellow.
>>
>>>>
>>>>> That's the whole principle behind the sub-device model: sub-devices do not know
>>>>> about 'the world outside'. So if you pass RADIO mode to S_FREQUENCY and there is no
>>>>> radio tuner, then the bridge driver is the one that should detect that and return
>>>>> -EINVAL.
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, as mentioned before, it can also be done in video_ioctl2.c by checking
>>>>> the tuner mode against the device node it's called on. But that requires tightening
>>>>> of the V4L2 spec first.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, video_ioctl2 (or, currently, the bridge driver) shouldn't allow an invalid operation.
>>>> But if the call returns an error, this error should be propagated. 
>>>>
>>>> Also, as I've explained before, even adding the invalid mode check inside video_ioctl,
>>>> you may still have errors if the registered tuners don't support the mode, because one 
>>>> of the tuners didn't registered properly.
>>>
>>> And that's something that tuner_probe/s_type_addr/s_config should have detected.
>>
>> I'm almost sure that they don't do it, currently: s_type_addr/s_config also calls
>> v4l2_device_call_all(). No errors are returned back. The tuner_probe call also can't
>> do much, as it doesn't know in advance if the device has one or two tuners.
> 
> I know they don't. But that's what should happen.
> 
>>> Or, should that be impossible (I would have to spend more time to analyze that)
>>> we might have to add a 'validate_tuner' op that can be called to verify all tuners
>>> are configured correctly.
>>
>> You're wanting to create a very complex patchset just to justify that replacing
>> from -EINVAL to a bool is the right thing to do. It isn't. The point is that:
>> if, for any reason, an ioctl fails, it should return an _error_, and _not_ a boolean.
> 
> True for an ioctl, not necessarily true for a subdev op.

True also for subdev op. If the bridge driver will do something else or not if a subdev
has an error is up to the bridge, but the errors should be reported there.

> I think one thing that
> confuses the issue here is that we have no clear error code for subdev ops that
> return a 'not handled' code. To some extent ENOIOCTLCMD is used for that, but
> it's not consistently used. Only if all subdevs called from a v4l2_device_call_all
> type macro return 'not handled' should it actually return some error.

Agreed.

>> After fixing v4l2_device_call_all() to allow it to return errors, the next step
>> is to review all calls to it, and add a proper handler for the errors. s_type_addr,
>> s_config, g_tuner, s_tuner, etc should be handling errors.
>>
>> In other words, the original v4l2_device_call_all() that were just replicating the
>> previous I2C behaviour is a mistake, as it doesn't provide any feedback about errors.
>> This needs to be replaced by something that it is aware of the errors. If you take
>> a look at v4l2-subdev, there's just one operation that doesn't return an error
>> (v4l2_subdev_internal_ops.unregistered, never called from drivers). All the others 
>> returns an error. However, the default usage is to simply discard errors. This is wrong.
>> Errors should be propagated.
> 
> It's not a mistake, it's just that nobody had the time to sort out the mess.
> The current behavior is basically bug-compatible with the pre-subdev days.
> It's only since all bridge drivers were converted to use subdevs that we can
> even think about cleaning up error handling.
> 
>>
>> AFAIK, there are only a two types error propagation that are currently needed:
>>
>> 1) Call all subdevices. If one returns 0, assumes that the operation succeeded. This is
>>    used when there are multiple subdevs, but they're mutually exclusive: only one of them 
>>    will handle such call. It is needed by tuners and by controls, on devices that have 
>>    several subdevs providing different sets of controls.
>>
>> 2) Call all subdevices until an error. Used when the same operation needs to be set
>>    on multiple subdevices. The subdevices that don't implement such operation should 
>>    return -ENOIOCTLCMD.
>>
>> Btw, v4l2_device_call_subdevs_until_err() has currently a bug: if all sub-devices return
>> -ENOIOCTLCMD, it returns 0. It should, instead, return -ENOIOCTLCMD, in order to allow
>> the bridge drivers to return an error code to the userspace, to indicate that the
>> IOCTL was not handled.
>>
>> Eventually, we may just use (2) for everything, if we patch all subdev drivers to return
>> -ENOIOCTLCMD if they are discarding a subdev call, but, in this case, the bridge drivers 
>> will need to replace the -ENOIOCTLCMD to an error code defined at the V4L2 spec (or we
>> can have a macro for that).
> 
> Option 2 is the correct approach. If all subdev drivers return -ENOIOCTLCMD,
> then return an error. If one driver returns a non-0 and non-ENOIOCTLCMD error,
> then return that, otherwise return 0.

I'm ok with that.

>> A side note: the only error codes defined at the media API DocBook are: -EACCES, -EAGAIN,
>> -EBADF, -EBUSY, -EFAULT, -EIO, -EINTR, -EINVAL, -ENFILE, -ENOMEM, -ENOSPC, -ENOTTY, -ENXIO,
>> -EMFILE, -EPERM, -ERANGE and EPIPE. On most places, the error codes are defined per ioctl.
>> We need to review the DocBook and the drivers to be sure that they match the API specs, 
>> in terms of returned codes. It probably makes sense to create a section with the valid error
>> codes, remove most of error codes comments from each ioctl, and add a link to the global
>> error code section.
>>
>> Ah, -ENODEV is not currently defined, but -ENXIO is defined on a few places. -ENXIO means 
>> "No such device or address". So, it may make sense to replace all -ENODEV to -ENXIO at 
>> the drivers.
> 
> Right, all very lovely, but I just want to fix the broken tuner code. We all know
> error handling is a big mess and could keep a small army of janitors busy for a year.
> 
> For now I'll remove those two offending patches and redo the patch series without
> them.

OK.

> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	Hans

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