1.12. V4L2 events¶

The V4L2 events provide a generic way to pass events to user space. The driver must use v4l2_fh to be able to support V4L2 events.

Events are subscribed per-filehandle. An event specification consists of a type and is optionally associated with an object identified through the id field. If unused, then the id is 0. So an event is uniquely identified by the (type, id) tuple.

The v4l2_fh struct has a list of subscribed events on its subscribed field.

When the user subscribes to an event, a v4l2_subscribed_event struct is added to v4l2_fh.subscribed, one for every subscribed event.

Each v4l2_subscribed_event struct ends with a v4l2_kevent ringbuffer, with the size given by the caller of v4l2_event_subscribe(). This ringbuffer is used to store any events raised by the driver.

So every (type, ID) event tuple will have its own v4l2_kevent ringbuffer. This guarantees that if a driver is generating lots of events of one type in a short time, then that will not overwrite events of another type.

But if you get more events of one type than the size of the v4l2_kevent ringbuffer, then the oldest event will be dropped and the new one added.

The v4l2_kevent struct links into the available list of the v4l2_fh struct so ioctl VIDIOC_DQEVENT will know which event to dequeue first.

Finally, if the event subscription is associated with a particular object such as a V4L2 control, then that object needs to know about that as well so that an event can be raised by that object. So the node field can be used to link the v4l2_subscribed_event struct into a list of such objects.

So to summarize:

struct v4l2_fh has two lists: one of the subscribed events, and one of the available events.
struct v4l2_subscribed_event has a ringbuffer of raised (pending) events of that particular type.
If struct v4l2_subscribed_event is associated with a specific object, then that object will have an internal list of struct v4l2_subscribed_event so it knows who subscribed an event to that object.

Furthermore, the internal struct v4l2_subscribed_event has merge() and replace() callbacks which drivers can set. These callbacks are called when a new event is raised and there is no more room.

The replace() callback allows you to replace the payload of the old event with that of the new event, merging any relevant data from the old payload into the new payload that replaces it. It is called when this event type has a ringbuffer with size is one, i.e. only one event can be stored in the ringbuffer.

The merge() callback allows you to merge the oldest event payload into that of the second-oldest event payload. It is called when the ringbuffer has size is greater than one.

This way no status information is lost, just the intermediate steps leading up to that state.

A good example of these replace/merge callbacks is in v4l2-event.c: ctrls_replace() and ctrls_merge() callbacks for the control event.

Note

these callbacks can be called from interrupt context, so they must be fast.

In order to queue events to video device, drivers should call:

v4l2_event_queue (vdev, ev)

The driver’s only responsibility is to fill in the type and the data fields. The other fields will be filled in by V4L2.

1.12.1. Event subscription¶

Subscribing to an event is via:

v4l2_event_subscribe (fh, sub , elems, ops)

This function is used to implement video_device-> ioctl_ops-> vidioc_subscribe_event, but the driver must check first if the driver is able to produce events with specified event id, and then should call v4l2_event_subscribe() to subscribe the event.

The elems argument is the size of the event queue for this event. If it is 0, then the framework will fill in a default value (this depends on the event type).

The ops argument allows the driver to specify a number of callbacks:

Callback	Description
add	called when a new listener gets added (subscribing to the same event twice will only cause this callback to get called once)
del	called when a listener stops listening
replace	replace event ‘old’ with event ‘new’.
merge	merge event ‘old’ into event ‘new’.

All 4 callbacks are optional, if you don’t want to specify any callbacks the ops argument itself maybe NULL.

1.12.2. Unsubscribing an event¶

Unsubscribing to an event is via:

v4l2_event_unsubscribe (fh, sub)

This function is used to implement video_device-> ioctl_ops-> vidioc_unsubscribe_event. A driver may call v4l2_event_unsubscribe() directly unless it wants to be involved in unsubscription process.

The special type V4L2_EVENT_ALL may be used to unsubscribe all events. The drivers may want to handle this in a special way.

1.12.3. Check if there’s a pending event¶

Checking if there’s a pending event is via:

v4l2_event_pending (fh)

This function returns the number of pending events. Useful when implementing poll.

1.12.4. How events work¶

Events are delivered to user space through the poll system call. The driver can use v4l2_fh->wait (a wait_queue_head_t) as the argument for poll_wait().

There are standard and private events. New standard events must use the smallest available event type. The drivers must allocate their events from their own class starting from class base. Class base is V4L2_EVENT_PRIVATE_START + n * 1000 where n is the lowest available number. The first event type in the class is reserved for future use, so the first available event type is ‘class base + 1’.

An example on how the V4L2 events may be used can be found in the OMAP 3 ISP driver (drivers/media/platform/omap3isp).

A subdev can directly send an event to the v4l2_device notify function with V4L2_DEVICE_NOTIFY_EVENT. This allows the bridge to map the subdev that sends the event to the video node(s) associated with the subdev that need to be informed about such an event.

1.12.4.1. V4L2 event functions and data structures¶

struct v4l2_kevent¶: Internal kernel event struct.

Definition

struct v4l2_kevent {
  struct list_head        list;
  struct v4l2_subscribed_event *sev;
  struct v4l2_event       event;
  u64 ts;
};

Members

list: List node for the v4l2_fh->available list.
sev: Pointer to parent v4l2_subscribed_event.
event: The event itself.
ts: The timestamp of the event.

struct v4l2_subscribed_event_ops¶: Subscribed event operations.

Definition

struct v4l2_subscribed_event_ops {
  int (*add)(struct v4l2_subscribed_event *sev, unsigned int elems);
  void (*del)(struct v4l2_subscribed_event *sev);
  void (*replace)(struct v4l2_event *old, const struct v4l2_event *new);
  void (*merge)(const struct v4l2_event *old, struct v4l2_event *new);
};

Members

add: Optional callback, called when a new listener is added
del: Optional callback, called when a listener stops listening
replace: Optional callback that can replace event ‘old’ with event ‘new’.
merge: Optional callback that can merge event ‘old’ into event ‘new’.

struct v4l2_subscribed_event¶: Internal struct representing a subscribed event.

Definition

struct v4l2_subscribed_event {
  struct list_head        list;
  u32 type;
  u32 id;
  u32 flags;
  struct v4l2_fh          *fh;
  struct list_head        node;
  const struct v4l2_subscribed_event_ops *ops;
  unsigned int            elems;
  unsigned int            first;
  unsigned int            in_use;
  struct v4l2_kevent      events[];
};

Members

list: List node for the v4l2_fh->subscribed list.
type: Event type.
id: Associated object ID (e.g. control ID). 0 if there isn’t any.
flags: Copy of v4l2_event_subscription->flags.
fh: Filehandle that subscribed to this event.
node: List node that hooks into the object’s event list (if there is one).
ops: v4l2_subscribed_event_ops
elems: The number of elements in the events array.
first: The index of the events containing the oldest available event.
in_use: The number of queued events.
events: An array of elems events.

int v4l2_event_dequeue(struct v4l2_fh *fh, struct v4l2_event *event, int nonblocking)¶: Dequeue events from video device.

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
struct v4l2_event *event: pointer to struct v4l2_event
int nonblocking: if not zero, waits for an event to arrive

void v4l2_event_queue(struct video_device *vdev, const struct v4l2_event *ev)¶: Queue events to video device.

Parameters

struct video_device *vdev: pointer to struct video_device
const struct v4l2_event *ev: pointer to struct v4l2_event

Description

The event will be queued for all struct v4l2_fh file handlers.

Note

The driver’s only responsibility is to fill in the type and the data fields.The other fields will be filled in by V4L2.

void v4l2_event_queue_fh(struct v4l2_fh *fh, const struct v4l2_event *ev)¶: Queue events to video device.

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
const struct v4l2_event *ev: pointer to struct v4l2_event

Description

The event will be queued only for the specified struct v4l2_fh file handler.

Note

The driver’s only responsibility is to fill in the type and the data fields.The other fields will be filled in by V4L2.

int v4l2_event_pending(struct v4l2_fh *fh)¶: Check if an event is available

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh

Description

Returns the number of pending events.

int v4l2_event_subscribe(struct v4l2_fh *fh, const struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub, unsigned int elems, const struct v4l2_subscribed_event_ops *ops)¶: Subscribes to an event

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
const struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub: pointer to struct v4l2_event_subscription
unsigned int elems: size of the events queue
const struct v4l2_subscribed_event_ops *ops: pointer to v4l2_subscribed_event_ops

Description

Note

if elems is zero, the framework will fill in a default value, with is currently 1 element.

int v4l2_event_unsubscribe(struct v4l2_fh *fh, const struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub)¶: Unsubscribes to an event

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
const struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub: pointer to struct v4l2_event_subscription

void v4l2_event_unsubscribe_all(struct v4l2_fh *fh)¶: Unsubscribes to all events

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh

int v4l2_event_subdev_unsubscribe(struct v4l2_subdev *sd, struct v4l2_fh *fh, struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub)¶: Subdev variant of v4l2_event_unsubscribe()

Parameters

struct v4l2_subdev *sd: pointer to struct v4l2_subdev
struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub: pointer to struct v4l2_event_subscription

Description

Note

This function should be used for the struct v4l2_subdev_core_ops unsubscribe_event field.

int v4l2_src_change_event_subscribe(struct v4l2_fh *fh, const struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub)¶: helper function that calls v4l2_event_subscribe() if the event is V4L2_EVENT_SOURCE_CHANGE.

Parameters

struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
const struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub: pointer to struct v4l2_event_subscription

int v4l2_src_change_event_subdev_subscribe(struct v4l2_subdev *sd, struct v4l2_fh *fh, struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub)¶: Variant of v4l2_event_subscribe(), meant to subscribe only events of the type V4L2_EVENT_SOURCE_CHANGE.

Parameters

struct v4l2_subdev *sd: pointer to struct v4l2_subdev
struct v4l2_fh *fh: pointer to struct v4l2_fh
struct v4l2_event_subscription *sub: pointer to struct v4l2_event_subscription