[alsa-devel] Playback Devices in PREPARED State Throw Off POLLOUT Events?

[Takashi Iwai]

At Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:46:47 -0500,
Jeff Rush wrote:
> 
> A question re normal internal operation of ALSA.
> 
> I'm using the poll() interface to wait for a audio playback device to ask for 
> more samples.  The device is in the PREPARED state, not RUNNING state.  At the 
> beginning of my program, _before_ I write any samples to it, I'm getting 
> repeated POLLOUT events, when I do not yet have data available to send.  They 
> seem to come frequent enough to load down my CPU, rather than every N ticks, 
> so it seems.
> 
> I thought a device was idle in the PREPARED state, and you had to either set 
> the start conditions and write data, or explicitly invoke snd_pcm_start().  In 
> my case, I wanted to use snd_pcm_start() once I had data to send, and also 
> used the start conditions, set at 50%, to cause the audio output to them 
> proceed to the speaker.
> 
> The output snd_pcm_status_dump() right after exiting from the very first 
> poll() ever in the program shows the following, and that I have a POLLOUT 
> event pending.
> 
>   --- Status of Headphones Player --- 
> 
>    state       : PREPARED 
> 
>    trigger_time: 0.000000 
> 
>    tstamp      : 1176119509.658821000 
> 
>    delay       : 0 
> 
>    avail       : 2400 
> 
>    avail_max   : 0 
> 
>  
> 
> POLLOUT fired, calling ready_for_write() 
> 
> 
> I suppose I could force it back to an earlier state like SND_PCM_STATE_OPEN or 
> SND_PCM_STATE_SETUP, but that seems a bit harsh, since the snd_pcm_hw_params() 
> takes it to the SND_PCM_STATE_PREPARED itself.

When the playback PCM is in the PREPARED state, it's actually ready
for getting data and trigger.  Thus poll() returns POLLOUT.  Its logic
is clear.

I think you should change the program design.  The data should have
been prepared before poll.  Or, if the flow is like:
	poll -> fetch data -> write data
then you need some error control between fetch data and write data,
for example, simply wait some time when no data is ready.


Takashi