Re: [PATCH v5] Introduce support for Systems Management Driver over WMI for Dell Systems

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 9/30/20 11:02 PM, Limonciello, Mario wrote:
> > > +		possible_values:	A file that can be read to obtain the possible
> > > +					values of the <attr>. Values are separated using
> > > +					semi-colon (``;``).
> > why not use set notation from math classes assuming intergers?  i.e.
> > (a, b)  all integers beween a and b but not including a or b (open set)
> > or
> > [a, b] all integerger betwen a and b including and b?  (closed set)
> >
> > Anyway its ambiguous if the the extremes are included in the set of possible
> > values as written.
>
> Enumeration attributes mean that there are fixed values, specifically not integers.
> Integers are in the "integer" type and explained below.
>
> An example value that would be seen here is possible_values:
>
> Enabled;Disabled;

That might not be the best example, because in that case arguably we
could export it as a boolean type (except that the WMI interface does
not give us boolean as an explicit / separate type).

Mark these enum attributes are really like enums in C, so we
have a fixed set of possible values which are described by
strings, since using integers for it makes no sense from a human
interaction pov. E.g. on the Lenovo X1C8 I have some attributes
have the following possible value sets:

                Package (0x03)
                {
                    "High",
                    "Normal",
                    "Silent"
                },

                Package (0x02)
                {
                    "LCD",
                    "ExternalDisplay"
                },

                Package (0x02)
                {
                    "Independent",
                    "Synchronized"
                },

I hope this helps clarify things.

Regards,

Hans