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Laurent Pinchart 99bb078eee [media] v4l: Clearly document interactions between formats, controls and buffers
V4L2 exposes parameters that influence buffers sizes through the format
ioctls (VIDIOC_G_FMT, VIDIOC_TRY_FMT, VIDIOC_S_FMT, and possibly
VIDIOC_G_SELECTION and VIDIOC_S_SELECTION). Other parameters not part of
the format structure may also influence buffer sizes or buffer layout in
general. One existing such parameter is rotation, which is implemented
by the V4L2_CID_ROTATE control and thus exposed through the V4L2 control
ioctls.

The interaction between those parameters and buffers is currently only
partially specified by the V4L2 API. In particular interactions between
controls and buffers isn't specified at all. The behaviour of the
VIDIOC_S_FMT and VIDIOC_S_SELECTION ioctls when buffers are allocated is
also not fully specified.

This patch clearly defines and documents the interactions between
formats, selections, controls and buffers.

The preparatory discussions for the documentation change considered
completely disallowing controls that change the buffer size or layout,
in favour of extending the format API with a new ioctl that would bundle
those controls with format information. The idea has been rejected, as
this would essentially be a restricted version of the upcoming request
API that wouldn't bring any additional value.

Another option we have considered was to mandate the use of the request
API to modify controls that influence buffer size or layout. This has
also been rejected on the grounds that requiring the request API to
change rotation even when streaming is stopped would significantly
complicate implementation of drivers and usage of the V4L2 API for
applications.

Applications will however be required to use the upcoming request API to
change at runtime formats or controls that influence the buffer size or
layout, because of the need to synchronize buffers with the formats and
controls. Otherwise there would be no way to interpret the content of a
buffer correctly.

Signed-off-by: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart+renesas@ideasonboard.com>
Acked-by: Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@linux.intel.com>
Acked-by: Hans Verkuil <hans.verkuil@cisco.com>
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>
2017-04-14 22:34:26 -03:00
Documentation [media] v4l: Clearly document interactions between formats, controls and buffers 2017-04-14 22:34:26 -03:00
arch [media] ARM: dts: exynos: add HDMI controller phandle to exynos4.dtsi 2017-04-10 13:12:41 -03:00
block blk-mq: include errors in did_work calculation 2017-03-24 15:42:47 -06:00
certs certs: Add a secondary system keyring that can be added to dynamically 2016-04-11 22:48:09 +01:00
crypto Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2017-03-31 12:11:32 -07:00
drivers [media] ov2640: avoid calling ov2640_select_win() twice 2017-04-14 22:32:56 -03:00
firmware WHENCE: use https://linuxtv.org for LinuxTV URLs 2015-12-04 10:35:11 -02:00
fs Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2017-04-01 19:45:05 -07:00
include [media] videodev2.h: fix outdated comment 2017-04-10 14:57:19 -03:00
init mm: move mm_percpu_wq initialization earlier 2017-03-31 17:13:30 -07:00
ipc Merge branch 'WIP.sched-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2017-03-03 10:16:38 -08:00
kernel Merge branch 'sched-urgent-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2017-04-02 09:25:10 -07:00
lib Merge branch 'core-urgent-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2017-04-02 09:18:59 -07:00
mm mm/hugetlb.c: don't call region_abort if region_chg fails 2017-03-31 17:13:30 -07:00
net The restriction of NFSv4 to TCP went overboard and also broke the 2017-04-01 10:43:37 -07:00
samples Merge branch 'rebased-statx' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2017-03-03 11:38:56 -08:00
scripts x86/build: Mostly disable '-maccumulate-outgoing-args' 2017-03-30 11:53:04 +02:00
security Merge branch 'WIP.sched-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2017-03-03 10:16:38 -08:00
sound ALSA: hda - fix a problem for lineout on a Dell AIO machine 2017-03-31 10:58:26 +02:00
tools Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2017-03-23 11:29:49 -07:00
usr kbuild: initramfs cleanup, set target from Kconfig 2017-01-05 09:40:16 -08:00
virt KVM: pci-assign: do not map smm memory slot pages in vt-d page tables 2017-03-28 10:08:54 +02:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore Add hch to .get_maintainer.ignore 2015-08-21 14:30:10 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore Merge branch 'misc' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild 2016-08-02 16:48:52 -04:00
.mailmap mailmap: add codeaurora.org names for nameless email commits 2017-01-10 18:31:55 -08:00
COPYING
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Remove old e-mail address 2017-02-13 12:24:56 -05:00
Kbuild scripts/gdb: provide linux constants 2016-05-23 17:04:14 -07:00
Kconfig
MAINTAINERS [media] media: add CEC notifier support 2017-04-10 12:48:28 -03:00
Makefile Linux 4.11-rc5 2017-04-02 17:23:54 -07:00
README README: add a new README file, pointing to the Documentation/ 2016-10-24 08:12:35 -02:00

README

Linux kernel
============

This file was moved to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst

Please notice that there are several guides for kernel developers and users.
These guides can be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.