[alsa-devel] SALSA-Lib: Playback Select/Poll not effective

[J. Scott Merritt]

Dear List,

Using SALSA-Lib 0.0.4, I call:	

snd_pcm_open (&playback_handle, argv[1], SND_PCM_STREAM_PLAYBACK, O_NONBLOCK);
snd_pcm_hw_params_malloc (&hw_params)
snd_pcm_hw_params_any (playback_handle, hw_params)
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_access (playback_handle, hw_params, SND_PCM_ACCESS_RW_INTERLEAVED)
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_format (playback_handle, hw_params, SND_PCM_FORMAT_S16_LE)
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_rate (playback_handle, hw_params, 16000, 0)
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_channels (playback_handle, hw_params, 2)
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_buffer_size_last (playback_handle, hw_params, &bfrsize)
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_period_size (playback_handle, hw_params, 1024, 0)
snd_pcm_hw_params (playback_handle, hw_params)
snd_pcm_hw_params_free (hw_params);
	
snd_pcm_sw_params_malloc (&sw_params)
snd_pcm_sw_params_current (playback_handle, sw_params)
snd_pcm_sw_params_set_avail_min (playback_handle, sw_params, 1024)
snd_pcm_sw_params_set_start_threshold (playback_handle, sw_params, 4096U)
snd_pcm_sw_params (playback_handle, sw_params)
	
snd_pcm_prepare (playback_handle)

int pdcount = snd_pcm_poll_descriptors_count (playback_handle);
struct pollfd fds [10];
pdcount = snd_pcm_poll_descriptors (playback_handle, fds, 10);

while ((frames_to_deliver = snd_pcm_avail_update (playback_handle)) > 1024) {
   snd_pcm_writei (playback_handle, &buf, 1024) } 

while (1) {
   retval = poll (fds, 1, 5000);

   frames_to_deliver = snd_pcm_avail_update (playback_handle);
   fprintf (stderr, "Frames to deliver was: %ld\n", frames_to_deliver);

   frames_to_deliver = frames_to_deliver > 4096 ? 4096 : frames_to_deliver;
   playback_callback (frames_to_deliver);
}


The "retval = poll (fds, 1, 5000)" statement does not appear to wait for the
playback buffer to be sufficiently emptied.  When this same program is run with
the standard alsa-lib, the POLL statement will wait until there is room in the
buffer to accomodate 1024 additional samples.  When run with SALSA-lib, it
appears to return immediately and snd_pcm_avail_update indicates that there
is only space for about 80 more samples.

The code is being cross-compiled and tested on an ARM processor
(PXA270) which is running linux kernel 2.6.21.   This same code sequence
-does- operate properly (in the same ARM test environment) when compiled
against AlsaLib 1.0.13.

Another apparent (and perhaps relevent) difference between AlsaLib and
SALSA-Lib is that if I open the PCM stream with O_NONBLOCK and then call
snd_pcm_poll_descriptors, AlsaLib gives me a FD = 4, whereas SALSA-Lib
reports an FD = 3;

Thanks, Scott.