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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 OR GFDL-1.1-no-invariants-or-later
+.. c:namespace:: MC
+
+.. _media-request-api:
+
+Request API
+===========
+
+The Request API has been designed to allow V4L2 to deal with requirements of
+modern devices (stateless codecs, complex camera pipelines, ...) and APIs
+(Android Codec v2). One such requirement is the ability for devices belonging to
+the same pipeline to reconfigure and collaborate closely on a per-frame basis.
+Another is support of stateless codecs, which require controls to be applied
+to specific frames (aka 'per-frame controls') in order to be used efficiently.
+
+While the initial use-case was V4L2, it can be extended to other subsystems
+as well, as long as they use the media controller.
+
+Supporting these features without the Request API is not always possible and if
+it is, it is terribly inefficient: user-space would have to flush all activity
+on the media pipeline, reconfigure it for the next frame, queue the buffers to
+be processed with that configuration, and wait until they are all available for
+dequeuing before considering the next frame. This defeats the purpose of having
+buffer queues since in practice only one buffer would be queued at a time.
+
+The Request API allows a specific configuration of the pipeline (media
+controller topology + configuration for each media entity) to be associated with
+specific buffers. This allows user-space to schedule several tasks ("requests")
+with different configurations in advance, knowing that the configuration will be
+applied when needed to get the expected result. Configuration values at the time
+of request completion are also available for reading.
+
+General Usage
+-------------
+
+The Request API extends the Media Controller API and cooperates with
+subsystem-specific APIs to support request usage. At the Media Controller
+level, requests are allocated from the supporting Media Controller device
+node. Their life cycle is then managed through the request file descriptors in
+an opaque way. Configuration data, buffer handles and processing results
+stored in requests are accessed through subsystem-specific APIs extended for
+request support, such as V4L2 APIs that take an explicit ``request_fd``
+parameter.
+
+Request Allocation
+------------------
+
+User-space allocates requests using :ref:`MEDIA_IOC_REQUEST_ALLOC`
+for the media device node. This returns a file descriptor representing the
+request. Typically, several such requests will be allocated.
+
+Request Preparation
+-------------------
+
+Standard V4L2 ioctls can then receive a request file descriptor to express the
+fact that the ioctl is part of said request, and is not to be applied
+immediately. See :ref:`MEDIA_IOC_REQUEST_ALLOC` for a list of ioctls that
+support this. Configurations set with a ``request_fd`` parameter are stored
+instead of being immediately applied, and buffers queued to a request do not
+enter the regular buffer queue until the request itself is queued.
+
+Request Submission
+------------------
+
+Once the configuration and buffers of the request are specified, it can be
+queued by calling :ref:`MEDIA_REQUEST_IOC_QUEUE` on the request file descriptor.
+A request must contain at least one buffer, otherwise ``ENOENT`` is returned.
+A queued request cannot be modified anymore.
+
+.. caution::
+   For :ref:`memory-to-memory devices <mem2mem>` you can use requests only for
+   output buffers, not for capture buffers. Attempting to add a capture buffer
+   to a request will result in an ``EBADR`` error.
+
+If the request contains configurations for multiple entities, individual drivers
+may synchronize so the requested pipeline's topology is applied before the
+buffers are processed. Media controller drivers do a best effort implementation
+since perfect atomicity may not be possible due to hardware limitations.
+
+.. caution::
+
+   It is not allowed to mix queuing requests with directly queuing buffers:
+   whichever method is used first locks this in place until
+   :ref:`VIDIOC_STREAMOFF <VIDIOC_STREAMON>` is called or the device is
+   :ref:`closed <func-close>`. Attempts to directly queue a buffer when earlier
+   a buffer was queued via a request or vice versa will result in an ``EBUSY``
+   error.
+
+Controls can still be set without a request and are applied immediately,
+regardless of whether a request is in use or not.
+
+.. caution::
+
+   Setting the same control through a request and also directly can lead to
+   undefined behavior!
+
+User-space can :c:func:`poll()` a request file descriptor in
+order to wait until the request completes. A request is considered complete
+once all its associated buffers are available for dequeuing and all the
+associated controls have been updated with the values at the time of completion.
+Note that user-space does not need to wait for the request to complete to
+dequeue its buffers: buffers that are available halfway through a request can
+be dequeued independently of the request's state.
+
+A completed request contains the state of the device after the request was
+executed. User-space can query that state by calling
+:ref:`ioctl VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS <VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS>` with the request file
+descriptor. Calling :ref:`ioctl VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS <VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS>` for a
+request that has been queued but not yet completed will return ``EBUSY``
+since the control values might be changed at any time by the driver while the
+request is in flight.
+
+.. _media-request-life-time:
+
+Recycling and Destruction
+-------------------------
+
+Finally, a completed request can either be discarded or be reused. Calling
+:c:func:`close()` on a request file descriptor will make
+that file descriptor unusable and the request will be freed once it is no
+longer in use by the kernel. That is, if the request is queued and then the
+file descriptor is closed, then it won't be freed until the driver completed
+the request.
+
+The :ref:`MEDIA_REQUEST_IOC_REINIT` will clear a request's state and make it
+available again. No state is retained by this operation: the request is as
+if it had just been allocated.
+
+Example for a Codec Device
+--------------------------
+
+For use-cases such as :ref:`codecs <mem2mem>`, the request API can be used
+to associate specific controls to
+be applied by the driver for the OUTPUT buffer, allowing user-space
+to queue many such buffers in advance. It can also take advantage of requests'
+ability to capture the state of controls when the request completes to read back
+information that may be subject to change.
+
+Put into code, after obtaining a request, user-space can assign controls and one
+OUTPUT buffer to it:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	struct v4l2_buffer buf;
+	struct v4l2_ext_controls ctrls;
+	int req_fd;
+	...
+	if (ioctl(media_fd, MEDIA_IOC_REQUEST_ALLOC, &req_fd))
+		return errno;
+	...
+	ctrls.which = V4L2_CTRL_WHICH_REQUEST_VAL;
+	ctrls.request_fd = req_fd;
+	if (ioctl(codec_fd, VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS, &ctrls))
+		return errno;
+	...
+	buf.type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_OUTPUT;
+	buf.flags |= V4L2_BUF_FLAG_REQUEST_FD;
+	buf.request_fd = req_fd;
+	if (ioctl(codec_fd, VIDIOC_QBUF, &buf))
+		return errno;
+
+Note that it is not allowed to use the Request API for CAPTURE buffers
+since there are no per-frame settings to report there.
+
+Once the request is fully prepared, it can be queued to the driver:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	if (ioctl(req_fd, MEDIA_REQUEST_IOC_QUEUE))
+		return errno;
+
+User-space can then either wait for the request to complete by calling poll() on
+its file descriptor, or start dequeuing CAPTURE buffers. Most likely, it will
+want to get CAPTURE buffers as soon as possible and this can be done using a
+regular :ref:`VIDIOC_DQBUF <VIDIOC_QBUF>`:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	struct v4l2_buffer buf;
+
+	memset(&buf, 0, sizeof(buf));
+	buf.type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
+	if (ioctl(codec_fd, VIDIOC_DQBUF, &buf))
+		return errno;
+
+Note that this example assumes for simplicity that for every OUTPUT buffer
+there will be one CAPTURE buffer, but this does not have to be the case.
+
+We can then, after ensuring that the request is completed via polling the
+request file descriptor, query control values at the time of its completion via
+a call to :ref:`VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS <VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS>`.
+This is particularly useful for volatile controls for which we want to
+query values as soon as the capture buffer is produced.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	struct pollfd pfd = { .events = POLLPRI, .fd = req_fd };
+	poll(&pfd, 1, -1);
+	...
+	ctrls.which = V4L2_CTRL_WHICH_REQUEST_VAL;
+	ctrls.request_fd = req_fd;
+	if (ioctl(codec_fd, VIDIOC_G_EXT_CTRLS, &ctrls))
+		return errno;
+
+Once we don't need the request anymore, we can either recycle it for reuse with
+:ref:`MEDIA_REQUEST_IOC_REINIT`...
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	if (ioctl(req_fd, MEDIA_REQUEST_IOC_REINIT))
+		return errno;
+
+... or close its file descriptor to completely dispose of it.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	close(req_fd);
+
+Example for a Simple Capture Device
+-----------------------------------
+
+With a simple capture device, requests can be used to specify controls to apply
+for a given CAPTURE buffer.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	struct v4l2_buffer buf;
+	struct v4l2_ext_controls ctrls;
+	int req_fd;
+	...
+	if (ioctl(media_fd, MEDIA_IOC_REQUEST_ALLOC, &req_fd))
+		return errno;
+	...
+	ctrls.which = V4L2_CTRL_WHICH_REQUEST_VAL;
+	ctrls.request_fd = req_fd;
+	if (ioctl(camera_fd, VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS, &ctrls))
+		return errno;
+	...
+	buf.type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
+	buf.flags |= V4L2_BUF_FLAG_REQUEST_FD;
+	buf.request_fd = req_fd;
+	if (ioctl(camera_fd, VIDIOC_QBUF, &buf))
+		return errno;
+
+Once the request is fully prepared, it can be queued to the driver:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+	if (ioctl(req_fd, MEDIA_REQUEST_IOC_QUEUE))
+		return errno;
+
+User-space can then dequeue buffers, wait for the request completion, query
+controls and recycle the request as in the M2M example above.