Re: [RESEND PATCH v17 00/17] Multi Color LED Framework

From: Jacek Anaszewski
Date: Thu Feb 27 2020 - 16:22:50 EST


On 2/27/20 2:07 PM, Dan Murphy wrote:
> Pavel
>
> On 2/27/20 6:43 AM, Greg KH wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 27, 2020 at 11:58:08AM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
>>> Hi, Jacek!
>>>
>>> (and thanks for doing this).
>>>
>>>> We have here long lasting discussion related to LED multicolor class
>>>> sysfs interface design. We went through several iterations and worked
>>>> out the solution with individual file per each color sub-LED in the
>>>> color directory as shown below:
>>>>
>>>> /sys/class/leds/<led>/colors/<color>_intensity
>>>>
>>>> This is in line with one-value-per-file sysfs rule, that is being
>>>> frequently highlighted, and we even had not so long ago a patch
>>>> for led cpu trigger solving the problem caused by this rule not
>>>> being adhered to.
>>> Yep. One of the problems is that it is nice to change all the hardware
>>> channels at once to produce color (it is often on i2c -- and slow), so
>>> current proposals use "interesting" kind of latching.
>>>
>>>> Now we have the voice below bringing to attention another caveat
>>>> from sysfs documentation:
>>>>
>>>> "it is socially acceptable to express an array of values of the same
>>>> type"
>>>>
>>>> and proposing the interface in the form of two files:
>>>>
>>>> channel_intensity (file containing array of u32's)
>>>> channel_names (usually containing "red green blue")
>>> And thus I want to have it in one file, so it is naturaly atomic. RGB
>>> leds with 3 channels are common; I have not user yet, but there are
>>> RGBW with 4 channels (and some more exotic stuff). I don't expect to
>>> have more than 5 channels.
>
> This is not an accurate statement. Right now a user can have up to 8
> channels to cover all the LEDs defined in the LED core
>
> And if the led_colors array expands then this array can expand.
>
> We have no control on how many entries the user will put in their DT so
> again this number is completely arbitrary.

I believe that some of mechanisms that were devised for the most
recent implementation proposal of LED mc class will need
to be reused for the array approach. E.g. available_colors bitmask
will make the parsing resistant to duplicates.

Of course LED multicolor DT node design should be applicable as well
to the array approach.

>> Writing 3 or 4 or 5 numbers all at once in a single sysfs file to
>> represent a single output should be fine.
>> thanks,

Thank you for making this clear.

Effectively, the way to go as I see it now is just moving from
colors directory to channel_intensity and channel_names files.

Besides that, since the issue of backwards compatibility with
LED class still remains, we need to apply the already worked out
formula for mapping brightness to color iout values.

This implies that color values written to channel_intensity file
will be written unchanged to the hw only when global brightness
is equal to max_brightness. This is because they will be multiplied
by brightness / max_brightness ratio.

Do you agree, Pavel?

--
Best regards,
Jacek Anaszewski