Re: [PATCH] drm: fourcc byteorder: brings header file comments in line with reality.

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Thu May 11 2017 - 17:23:17 EST


On Fri 2017-04-21 14:08:04, Ville Syrjälä wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 11:50:18AM +0200, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
> > On Fr, 2017-04-21 at 12:25 +0300, Ville Syrjälä wrote:
> > > On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 09:58:24AM +0200, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
> > > > While working on graphics support for virtual machines on ppc64 (which
> > > > exists in both little and big endian variants) I've figured the comments
> > > > for various drm fourcc formats in the header file don't match reality.
> > > >
> > > > Comments says the RGB formats are little endian, but in practice they
> > > > are native endian. Look at the drm_mode_legacy_fb_format() helper. It
> > > > maps -- for example -- bpp/depth 32/24 to DRM_FORMAT_XRGB8888, no matter
> > > > whenever the machine is little endian or big endian. The users of this
> > > > function (fbdev emulation, DRM_IOCTL_MODE_ADDFB) expect the framebuffer
> > > > is native endian, not little endian. Most userspace also operates on
> > > > native endian only.
> > >
> > > I'm not a fan of "native". Native to what? "CPU" or "host" is what I'd
> > > call it.
> >
> > native == whatever the cpu is using.
> >
> > I personally find "native" more intuitive, but at the end of the day I
> > don't mind much. If people prefer "host" over "native" I'll change it.
>
> "native" to me feels more like "native to the GPU" since these things
> really are tied to the GPU not the CPU. That's also why I went with the
> explicit endianness originally so that the driver could properly declare
> what the GPU supports.

You can easily have more than one GPU in the system. Plus these are
used by cameras / frame grabbers, too. So anything else than CPU
endianness is badly defined.

(And I agree with the rest of the thread -- we should really be
explicit; fourcc should specify what format the image data are in, and
it should be possible to write fourcc + raw data into file and
transfer it between machines.)


Pavel

--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature