[alsa-devel] Channel mapping

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007, Takashi Iwai wrote:

> > > We can also encode PCM device / subdevice numbers to data structure. 
> > > But I think that best way is to extend channel_info PCM ioctl 
> > > (create new version and emulate old one - it should be quite easy to 
> > > implement).
>
> > The channel_info ioctl returns only information about one channel.
>
> OTOH, it's simple and easy to parse.  But, certainly TLV is more
> flexible for additional metadata.

I also think that it's easy to iterate over all channels to get a map.

> > I think we should have a more flexible ioctl that also allows us to
> > describe the PCM device itself (such as volume controls that affect
> > all channels, or latency information).
> 
> Indeed, the mixer <-> PCM mapping can be useful.  For such
> information, the fixed size struct isn't suitable as multiple mixer
> elements correspond to a single PCM channel.

I think that we have already such interface, but maybe not well described 
and used. I would propose to use SNDRV_CTL_ELEM_IFACE_PCM for PCM mixer 
related controls and device & subdevice from control_id structure. In this 
way, we can easy group and assign all control elements to PCM substream.

We may have only one problem - to identify which elements are mixer 
related and which are not. Maybe, we can use one bit from access flags to 
determine, if it's a mixer control element if interface != MIXER.

						Jaroslav

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Jaroslav Kysela <perex at perex.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project