Re: [PATCH v2] Re: Battery class driver.

From: Greg KH
Date: Wed Nov 01 2006 - 14:32:28 EST


On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 03:28:27PM +0200, Shem Multinymous wrote:
> Hi Greg,
>
> On 10/31/06, Greg KH <greg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> On 10/28/06, David Zeuthen <davidz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >What about just prepending the unit to the 'threshold' file? Then user
> >> >space can expect the contents of said file to be of the form "%d %s". I
> >> >don't think that violates the "only one value per file" sysfs mantra.
> >>
> >> The tp_smapi battery driver did just this ("16495 mW"). But I dropped
> >> it in a recent version when Pavel pointed out the rest of sysfs, hwmon
> >> included, uses undecorated integers.
> >> Consistency aside, it seems reasonable and convenient. You have to
> >> decree that writes to the attributes (where relevant) don't include
> >> the units, of course, so no one will expect the kernel to parse that.
> >>
> >> There's an issue here if a drunk driver decides to specify (say)
> >> capacity_remaining in mWh and capacity_last_full in mAa, which will
> >> confuse anyone comparing those attributest. So don't do that.
> >>
> >> Jean, what's your opinion on letting hwmon-ish attributes specify
> >> units as "%d %s" where these are hardware-dependent?
> >
> >No, the sysfs files should just always keep the same units as
> >documented. It's easier all around that way.
>
> It sure is easier, but we're discussinng the case where units change
> in runtime; what do we document then? Plug in a different battery and
> you get reports in mA and mAh insted of mW and mWh.

Then you should just get different sysfs files then. One that describes
power and one that describes current.

> The suggestions so far were:
> 1. Append units string to the content of such attribute:
> /sys/.../capacity_remaining reads "16495 mW".
> 2. Add a seprate *_units attribute saying what are units for other
> attribute:
> /sys/.../capacity_units gives the units for
> /sys/.../capacity_{remaining,last_full,design,min,...}.
> 3. Append the units to the attribute names:
> capacity_{remaining,last_full,design_min,...}:mV.

No, again, one for power and one for current. Two different files
depending on the type of battery present. That way there is no need to
worry about unit issues.

thanks,

greg k-h
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/