Re: [PATCH v2] media/doc: Allow sizeimage to be set by v4l clients

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

Em Fri, 12 Apr 2019 18:59:15 +0300
Stanimir Varbanov <stanimir.varbanov@xxxxxxxxxx> escreveu:

> This changes v4l2_pix_format and v4l2_plane_pix_format sizeimage
> field description to allow v4l clients to set bigger image size
> in case of variable length compressed data.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Stanimir Varbanov <stanimir.varbanov@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2-mplane.rst | 13 ++++++++++++-
>  Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2.rst        | 11 ++++++++++-
>  2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2-mplane.rst b/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2-mplane.rst
> index 5688c816e334..005428a8121e 100644
> --- a/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2-mplane.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2-mplane.rst
> @@ -31,7 +31,18 @@ describing all planes of that format.
>  
>      * - __u32
>        - ``sizeimage``
> -      - Maximum size in bytes required for image data in this plane.
> +      - Maximum size in bytes required for image data in this plane,
> +	set by the driver. When the image consists of variable length
> +	compressed data this is the number of bytes required by the
> +	codec to support the worst-case compression scenario.
> +
> +	For uncompressed images the driver will set the value. For
> +	variable length compressed data clients are allowed to set
> +	the sizeimage field, but the driver may ignore it and set the
> +	value itself, or it may modify the provided value based on
> +	alignment requirements or minimum/maximum size requirements.
> +	If the client wants to leave this to the driver, then it should
> +	set sizeimage to 0.
>      * - __u32
>        - ``bytesperline``
>        - Distance in bytes between the leftmost pixels in two adjacent
> diff --git a/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2.rst b/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2.rst
> index 71eebfc6d853..0f7771151db9 100644
> --- a/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/media/uapi/v4l/pixfmt-v4l2.rst
> @@ -89,7 +89,16 @@ Single-planar format structure
>        - Size in bytes of the buffer to hold a complete image, set by the
>  	driver. Usually this is ``bytesperline`` times ``height``. When
>  	the image consists of variable length compressed data this is the
> -	maximum number of bytes required to hold an image.
> +	number of bytes required by the codec to support the worst-case
> +	compression scenario.
> +
> +	For uncompressed images the driver will set the value. For
> +	variable length compressed data clients are allowed to set
> +	the sizeimage field, but the driver may ignore it and set the
> +	value itself, or it may modify the provided value based on
> +	alignment requirements or minimum/maximum size requirements.
> +	If the client wants to leave this to the driver, then it should
> +	set sizeimage to 0.

It is very confusing to understand what you meant by the above paragraph,
as you inverted the sentence order and forgot a comma.

I would, instead, write the phrases using the direct order, and break
into two paragraphs, e. g., changing the above to:

	"The driver will set the value for uncompressed images.

	Clients are allowed to set the sizeimage field for variable length
	compressed data, but the driver may ignore it and set the
	value itself, or it may modify the provided value based on
	alignment requirements or minimum/maximum size requirements.
	If the client wants to leave this to the driver, then it should
	set sizeimage to 0."

That makes it a lot easier to read, hopefully preventing mistakes from
app and driver developers when reading about sizeimage.

Yet, I'm not too comfortable on letting this too generic. I mean,
how an app writer would know what formats are "variable length
compressed data", specially since libv4l may actually change that.

Thanks,
Mauro