V4L/DVB: V4L: Events: Add documentation

Add documentation on how to use V4L2 events, both for V4L2 drivers and for
V4L2 applications.

Signed-off-by: Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@maxwell.research.nokia.com>
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 60 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/video4linux/v4l2-framework.txt b/Documentation/video4linux/v4l2-framework.txt
index 48f0adfbc984..e831aaca66f8 100644
--- a/Documentation/video4linux/v4l2-framework.txt
+++ b/Documentation/video4linux/v4l2-framework.txt
@@ -680,3 +680,63 @@ int my_release(struct file *file)
 
         ...
 }
+
+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.
+
+Useful functions:
+
+- v4l2_event_alloc()
+
+  To use events, the driver must allocate events for the file handle. By
+  calling the function more than once, the driver may assure that at least n
+  events in total have been allocated. The function may not be called in
+  atomic context.
+
+- v4l2_event_queue()
+
+  Queue events to video device. The driver's only responsibility is to fill
+  in the type and the data fields. The other fields will be filled in by
+  V4L2.
+
+- v4l2_event_subscribe()
+
+  The video_device->ioctl_ops->vidioc_subscribe_event must check the driver
+  is able to produce events with specified event id. Then it calls
+  v4l2_event_subscribe() to subscribe the event.
+
+- v4l2_event_unsubscribe()
+
+  vidioc_unsubscribe_event in struct v4l2_ioctl_ops. A driver may use
+  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.
+
+- v4l2_event_pending()
+
+  Returns the number of pending events. Useful when implementing poll.
+
+Drivers do not initialise events directly. The events are initialised
+through v4l2_fh_init() if video_device->ioctl_ops->vidioc_subscribe_event is
+non-NULL. This *MUST* be performed in the driver's
+v4l2_file_operations->open() handler.
+
+Events are delivered to user space through the poll system call. The driver
+can use v4l2_fh->events->wait 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 available at <URL:http://gitorious.org/omap3camera> as of
+writing this.