[alsa-devel] handling of underrunning snd_pcm_writei

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:50:12 +0100,
Mads Kiilerich wrote:
> 
> > Returns: a positive number of frames actually written otherwise a negative error code
> > ...
> > Return values:
> > ...
> > -EPIPE 	an underrun occurred
> > ...
> > The count of bytes can be less only if a signal or underrun occurred.
> 
> So what is returned in case of underrun? Error code or count of bytes?

First it returns the actually written frames, then -EPIPE.
But, it might return -EPIPE first, depending on the plugin, I guess.

> Should snd_pcm_recover always be used to get the byte count after 
> -EPIPE? snd_pcm_recover is neither mentioned in the link above nor in 
> http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm.html , so I don't feel 
> confident about that.

Yes, snd_pcm_recover() is *recommended*.  You can write the recovery
routine by yourself.  The function isn't referred here just because
it's relatively new.  Better to be documented, indeed.

> And is it measured in "positive number of frames actually written" or 
> "count of bytes"?

Frames.  Should be corrected.

For both fixes, a patch from contributors is always welcome ;)

> It surprises me that snd_pcm_writei shows non-blocking behaviour in case 
> of underruns and don't use all the offered data. I would guess that it 
> either blocked and enjoyed the data it finally got, or that it gave an 
> error and didn't take any data at all. But if this is how it is, then 
> ... that is how it is ;-)

It's because the XRUN isn't recovered automatically but the operation
stops.  It's analogous to a disk-full error.


thanks,

Takashi