.\" $OpenBSD: sio_open.3,v 1.56 2022/05/30 10:31:59 op Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2007 Alexandre Ratchov .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. .\" .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: May 30 2022 $ .Dt SIO_OPEN 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm sio_open , .Nm sio_close , .Nm sio_setpar , .Nm sio_getpar , .Nm sio_getcap , .Nm sio_start , .Nm sio_stop , .Nm sio_flush , .Nm sio_read , .Nm sio_write , .Nm sio_onmove , .Nm sio_nfds , .Nm sio_pollfd , .Nm sio_revents , .Nm sio_eof , .Nm sio_setvol , .Nm sio_onvol , .Nm sio_initpar , .Nm SIO_BPS .Nd sndio interface to audio devices .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sndio.h .Ft "struct sio_hdl *" .Fn sio_open "const char *name" "unsigned int mode" "int nbio_flag" .Ft "void" .Fn sio_close "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_setpar "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "struct sio_par *par" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_getpar "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "struct sio_par *par" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_getcap "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "struct sio_cap *cap" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_start "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_stop "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_flush "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Ft "size_t" .Fn sio_read "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "void *addr" "size_t nbytes" .Ft "size_t" .Fn sio_write "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "const void *addr" "size_t nbytes" .Ft "void" .Fo sio_onmove .Fa "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Fa "void (*cb)(void *arg, int delta)" .Fa "void *arg" .Fc .Ft "int" .Fn sio_nfds "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_pollfd "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "struct pollfd *pfd" "int events" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_revents "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "struct pollfd *pfd" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_eof "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Ft "int" .Fn sio_setvol "struct sio_hdl *hdl" "unsigned int vol" .Ft "int" .Fo sio_onvol .Fa "struct sio_hdl *hdl" .Fa "void (*cb)(void *arg, unsigned int vol)" .Fa "void *arg" .Fc .Ft "void" .Fn sio_initpar "struct sio_par *par" .Ft unsigned int .Fn SIO_BPS "unsigned int bits" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm sndio library allows user processes to access .Xr audio 4 hardware and the .Xr sndiod 8 audio server in a uniform way. .Ss Opening and closing an audio device First the application must call the .Fn sio_open function to obtain a handle to the device; later it will be passed as the .Fa hdl argument of most other functions. The .Fa name parameter gives the device string discussed in .Xr sndio 7 . In most cases it should be set to .Dv SIO_DEVANY to allow the user to select it using the .Ev AUDIODEVICE environment variable. .Pp The following values of the .Fa mode parameter are supported: .Bl -tag -width "SIO_PLAY | SIO_REC" .It Dv SIO_PLAY Play-only mode: data written will be played by the device. .It Dv SIO_REC Record-only mode: samples are recorded by the device and must be read. .It Dv SIO_PLAY | SIO_REC The device plays and records synchronously; this means that the n-th recorded sample was physically sampled exactly when the n-th played sample was actually played. .El .Pp If the .Fa nbio_flag argument is true (i.e. non-zero), then the .Fn sio_read and .Fn sio_write functions (see below) will be non-blocking. .Pp The .Fn sio_close function stops the device as if .Fn sio_stop is called and frees the handle. Thus, no samples submitted with .Fn sio_write are discarded. .Ss Negotiating audio parameters Audio samples are interleaved. A frame consists of one sample for each channel. For example, a 16-bit stereo encoding has two samples per frame and, two bytes per sample (thus 4 bytes per frame). .Pp The set of parameters of the device that can be controlled is given by the following structure: .Bd -literal struct sio_par { unsigned int bits; /* bits per sample */ unsigned int bps; /* bytes per sample */ unsigned int sig; /* 1 = signed, 0 = unsigned int */ unsigned int le; /* 1 = LE, 0 = BE byte order */ unsigned int msb; /* 1 = MSB, 0 = LSB aligned */ unsigned int rchan; /* number channels for recording */ unsigned int pchan; /* number channels for playback */ unsigned int rate; /* frames per second */ unsigned int appbufsz; /* minimum buffer size without xruns */ unsigned int bufsz; /* end-to-end buffer size (read-only) */ unsigned int round; /* optimal buffer size divisor */ #define SIO_IGNORE 0 /* pause during xrun */ #define SIO_SYNC 1 /* resync after xrun */ #define SIO_ERROR 2 /* terminate on xrun */ unsigned int xrun; /* what to do on overrun/underrun */ }; .Ed .Pp The parameters are as follows: .Bl -tag -width "appbufsz" .It Fa bits Number of bits per sample: must be between 1 and 32. .It Fa bps Bytes per samples; if specified, it must be large enough to hold all bits. By default it's set to the smallest power of two large enough to hold .Fa bits . .It Fa sig If set (i.e. non-zero) then the samples are signed, else unsigned. .It Fa le If set, then the byte order is little endian, else big endian; it's meaningful only if .Fa bps No > 1 . .It Fa msb If set, then the .Fa bits are aligned in the packet to the most significant bit (i.e. lower bits are padded), else to the least significant bit (i.e. higher bits are padded); it's meaningful only if .Fa bits No < Fa bps No * 8 . .It Fa rchan The number of recorded channels; meaningful only if .Dv SIO_REC mode was selected. .It Fa pchan The number of played channels; meaningful only if .Dv SIO_PLAY mode was selected. .It Fa rate The sampling frequency in Hz. .It Fa appbufsz Size of the buffer in frames the application must maintain non-empty (on the play end) or non-full (on the record end) by calling .Fn sio_write or .Fn sio_read fast enough to avoid overrun or underrun conditions. The audio subsystem may use additional buffering, thus this parameter cannot be used for latency calculations. .It Fa bufsz The maximum number of frames that may be buffered. This parameter takes into account any buffers, and can be used for latency calculations. It is read-only. .It Fa round Optimal number of frames that the application buffers should be a multiple of, to get best performance. Applications can use this parameter to round their block size. .It Fa xrun The action when the client doesn't accept recorded data or doesn't provide data to play fast enough; it can be set to one of the .Dv SIO_IGNORE , .Dv SIO_SYNC , or .Dv SIO_ERROR constants. .El .Pp The following approach is recommended to negotiate device parameters: .Bl -bullet .It Initialize a .Vt sio_par structure using .Fn sio_initpar and fill it with the desired parameters. Then call .Fn sio_setpar to request the device to use them. Parameters left unset in the .Vt sio_par structure will be set to device-specific defaults. .It Call .Fn sio_getpar to retrieve the actual parameters of the device and check that they are usable. If they are not, then fail or set up a conversion layer. Sometimes the rate set can be slightly different to what was requested. A difference of about 0.5% is not audible and should be ignored. .El .Pp Parameters cannot be changed after .Fn sio_start has been called, .Fn sio_stop or .Fn sio_flush must be called before parameters can be changed. .Pp If the device is exposed by the .Xr sndiod 8 server, which is the default configuration, a transparent emulation layer will automatically be set up, and in this case any combination of rate, encoding and numbers of channels is supported. .Pp To ease filling the .Vt sio_par structure, the following macros can be used: .Bl -tag -width "SIO_BPS(bits)" .It Fn SIO_BPS bits Return the smallest value for .Fa bps that is a power of two and that is large enough to hold .Fa bits . .It Dv SIO_LE_NATIVE Can be used to set the .Fa le parameter when native byte order is required. It is 1 if the native byte order is little endian or 0 otherwise. .El .Ss Getting device capabilities There's no way to get an exhaustive list of all parameter combinations the device supports. Applications that need to have a set of working parameter combinations in advance can use the .Fn sio_getcap function. However, for most new applications it's generally not recommended to use .Fn sio_getcap . Instead, follow the recommendations for negotiating device parameters (see above). .Pp The .Vt sio_cap structure contains the list of parameter configurations. Each configuration contains multiple parameter sets. The application must examine all configurations, and choose its parameter set from .Em one of the configurations. Parameters of different configurations .Em are not usable together. .Bd -literal struct sio_cap { struct sio_enc { /* allowed encodings */ unsigned int bits; unsigned int bps; unsigned int sig; unsigned int le; unsigned int msb; } enc[SIO_NENC]; unsigned int rchan[SIO_NCHAN]; /* allowed rchans */ unsigned int pchan[SIO_NCHAN]; /* allowed pchans */ unsigned int rate[SIO_NRATE]; /* allowed rates */ unsigned int nconf; /* num. of confs[] */ struct sio_conf { unsigned int enc; /* bitmask of enc[] indexes */ unsigned int rchan; /* bitmask of rchan[] indexes */ unsigned int pchan; /* bitmask of pchan[] indexes */ unsigned int rate; /* bitmask of rate[] indexes */ } confs[SIO_NCONF]; }; .Ed .Pp The parameters are as follows: .Bl -tag -width "rchan[SIO_NCHAN]" .It Fa enc Ns Bq Dv SIO_NENC Array of supported encodings. The tuple of .Fa bits , .Fa bps , .Fa sig , .Fa le , and .Fa msb parameters are usable in the corresponding parameters of the .Vt sio_par structure. .It Fa rchan Ns Bq Dv SIO_NCHAN Array of supported channel numbers for recording usable in the .Vt sio_par structure. .It Fa pchan Ns Bq Dv SIO_NCHAN Array of supported channel numbers for playback usable in the .Vt sio_par structure. .It Fa rate Ns Bq Dv SIO_NRATE Array of supported sample rates usable in the .Vt sio_par structure. .It Fa nconf Number of different configurations available, i.e. number of filled elements of the .Fa confs Ns Bq array. .It Fa confs Ns Bq Dv SIO_NCONF Array of available configurations. Each configuration contains bitmasks indicating which elements of the above parameter arrays are valid for the given configuration. For instance, if the second bit of .Fa rate is set, in the .Vt sio_conf structure, then the second element of the .Fa rate Ns Bq Dv SIO_NRATE array of the .Vt sio_cap structure is valid for this configuration. As such, when reading the array elements in the .Vt sio_cap structure, the corresponding .Vt sio_conf bitmasks should always be used. .El .Ss Starting and stopping the device The .Fn sio_start function prepares the device to start. Once the play buffer is full, i.e.\& .Fa sio_par.bufsz samples are queued with .Fn sio_write , playback starts automatically. If record-only mode is selected, then .Fn sio_start starts recording immediately. In full-duplex mode, playback and recording will start synchronously as soon as the play buffer is full. .Pp The .Fn sio_stop function puts the audio subsystem in the same state as before .Fn sio_start was called. It stops recording, drains the play buffer and then stops playback. If samples to play are queued but playback hasn't started yet then playback is forced immediately; playback will actually stop once the buffer is drained. In no case are samples in the play buffer discarded. .Pp The .Fn sio_flush function stops playback and recording immediately, possibly discarding play buffer contents, and puts the audio subsystem in the same state as before .Fn sio_start was called. .Ss Playing and recording When record mode is selected, the .Fn sio_read function must be called to retrieve recorded data; it must be called often enough to ensure that internal buffers will not overrun. It will store at most .Fa nbytes bytes at the .Fa addr location and return the number of bytes stored. Unless the .Fa nbio_flag flag is set, it will block until data becomes available and will return zero only on error. .Pp Similarly, when play mode is selected, the .Fn sio_write function must be called to provide data to play. Unless the .Fa nbio_flag is set, .Fn sio_write will block until the requested amount of data is written. .Ss Non-blocking mode operation If the .Fa nbio_flag is set on .Fn sio_open , then the .Fn sio_read and .Fn sio_write functions will never block; if no data is available, they will return zero immediately. .Pp The .Xr poll 2 system call can be used to check if data can be read from or written to the device. The .Fn sio_pollfd function fills the array .Fa pfd of .Vt pollfd structures, used by .Xr poll 2 , with .Fa events ; the latter is a bit-mask of .Dv POLLIN and .Dv POLLOUT constants; refer to .Xr poll 2 for more details. The .Fn sio_revents function returns the bit-mask set by .Xr poll 2 in the .Fa pfd array of .Vt pollfd structures. If .Dv POLLIN is set, recorded samples are available in the device buffer and can be read with .Fn sio_read . If .Dv POLLOUT is set, space is available in the device buffer and new samples to play can be submitted with .Fn sio_write . .Dv POLLHUP may be set if an error occurs, even if it is not selected with .Fn sio_pollfd . .Pp The size of the .Fa pfd array, which the caller must pre-allocate, is provided by the .Fn sio_nfds function. .Ss Synchronizing non-audio events to the audio stream in real-time In order to perform actions at precise positions of the audio stream, such as displaying video in sync with the audio stream, the application must be notified in real-time of the exact position in the stream the hardware is processing. .Pp The .Fn sio_onmove function can be used to register the .Fn cb callback function called at regular time intervals. The .Fa delta argument contains the number of frames the hardware played and/or recorded since the last call of .Fn cb . It is called by .Fn sio_read , .Fn sio_write , and .Fn sio_revents . When the first sample is played and/or recorded, right after the device starts, the callback is invoked with a zero .Fa delta argument. The value of the .Fa arg pointer is passed to the callback and can contain anything. .Pp If desired, the application can maintain the current position by starting from zero (when .Fn sio_start is called) and adding to the current position .Fa delta every time .Fn cb is called. .Ss Measuring the latency and buffers usage The playback latency is the delay it will take for the frame just written to become audible, expressed in number of frames. The exact playback latency can be obtained by subtracting the current position from the number of frames written. Once playback is actually started (first sample audible), the latency will never exceed the .Fa bufsz parameter (see the sections above). There's a phase during which .Fn sio_write only queues data; once there's enough data, actual playback starts. During this phase talking about latency is meaningless. .Pp In any cases, at most .Fa bufsz frames are buffered. This value takes into account all buffers. The number of frames stored is equal to the number of frames written minus the current position. .Pp The recording latency is obtained similarly, by subtracting the number of frames read from the current position. .Pp Note that .Fn sio_write might block even if there is buffer space left; using the buffer usage to guess if .Fn sio_write would block is false and leads to unreliable programs \(en consider using .Xr poll 2 for this. .Ss Handling buffer overruns and underruns When the application cannot accept recorded data fast enough, the record buffer (of size .Fa appbufsz ) might overrun; in this case recorded data is lost. Similarly if the application cannot provide data to play fast enough, the play buffer underruns and silence is played instead. Depending on the .Fa xrun parameter of the .Vt sio_par structure, the audio subsystem will behave as follows: .Bl -tag -width "SIO_IGNORE" .It Dv SIO_IGNORE The device pauses during overruns and underruns, thus the current position (obtained through .Fn sio_onmove ) stops being incremented. Once the overrun and/or underrun condition is gone, the device resumes; play and record are always kept in sync. With this mode, the application cannot notice underruns and/or overruns and shouldn't care about them. .Pp This mode is the default. It's suitable for applications, like audio players and telephony, where time is not important and overruns or underruns are not short. .It Dv SIO_SYNC If the play buffer underruns, then silence is played, but in order to reach the right position in time, the same amount of written samples will be discarded once the application is unblocked. Similarly, if the record buffer overruns, then samples are discarded, but the same amount of silence will be returned later. The current position (obtained through .Fn sio_onmove ) is still incremented. When the play buffer underruns the play latency might become negative; when the record buffer overruns, the record latency might become larger than .Fa bufsz . .Pp This mode is suitable for applications, like music production, where time is important and where underruns or overruns are short and rare. .It Dv SIO_ERROR With this mode, on the first play buffer underrun or record buffer overrun, playback and/or recording is terminated and no other function than .Fn sio_close will succeed. .Pp This mode is mostly useful for testing. .El .Ss Controlling the volume The .Fn sio_setvol function can be used to set playback attenuation. The .Fa vol parameter takes a value between 0 (maximum attenuation) and .Dv SIO_MAXVOL (no attenuation). It specifies the weight the audio subsystem will give to this stream. It is not meant to control hardware parameters like speaker gain; the .Xr mixerctl 8 interface should be used for that purpose instead. .Pp An application can use the .Fn sio_onvol function to register a callback function that will be called each time the volume is changed, including when .Fn sio_setvol is used. The callback is always invoked when .Fn sio_onvol is called in order to provide the initial volume. An application can safely assume that once .Fn sio_onvol has returned a non-zero value, the callback has been invoked and thus the current volume is available. If there's no volume setting available, .Fn sio_onvol returns 0 and the callback is never invoked and calls to .Fn sio_setvol are ignored. .Pp The .Fn sio_onvol function can be called with a .Dv NULL argument to check whether a volume knob is available. .Ss Error handling Errors related to the audio subsystem (like hardware errors, dropped connections) and programming errors (e.g. call to .Fn sio_read on a play-only stream) are considered fatal. Once an error occurs, all functions taking a .Fa sio_hdl argument, except .Fn sio_close and .Fn sio_eof , stop working (i.e. always return 0). The .Fn sio_eof function can be used at any stage. .Ss Use with Xr pledge 2 If the .Nm sndio library is used in combination with .Xr pledge 2 , then the .Fn sio_open function needs the .Cm stdio , .Cm rpath , .Cm wpath , .Cm cpath , .Cm inet , .Cm unix , .Cm dns , and .Cm audio .Xr pledge 2 promises. .Bl -bullet .It .Cm rpath , .Cm wpath , and .Cm cpath are needed to read, write or create the authentication cookie .Pa ~/.sndio/cookie . .It .Cm rpath , .Cm wpath , and .Cm audio are needed when the device is a local raw device. .It .Cm unix is needed when the device is a local .Xr sndiod 8 sub-device. .It .Cm inet and .Cm dns are needed when the device is a remote .Xr sndiod 8 sub-device. .El .Pp Once no further calls to .Fn sio_open will be made, all these .Xr pledge 2 promises may be dropped, except for the .Cm audio promise. .Sh RETURN VALUES The .Fn sio_open function returns the newly created handle on success or .Dv NULL on failure. .Pp The .Fn sio_setpar , .Fn sio_getpar , .Fn sio_getcap , .Fn sio_start , .Fn sio_stop , .Fn sio_flush , and .Fn sio_setvol functions return 1 on success and 0 on failure. .Pp The .Fn sio_pollfd function returns the number of .Vt pollfd structures filled. The .Fn sio_nfds function returns the number of .Vt pollfd structures the caller must preallocate in order to be sure that .Fn sio_pollfd will never overrun. .Pp The .Fn sio_read and .Fn sio_write functions return the number of bytes transferred. .Pp The .Fn sio_eof function returns 0 if there's no pending error, and a non-zero value if there's an error. .Sh ENVIRONMENT .Bl -tag -width "SNDIO_DEBUGXXX" -compact .It Ev AUDIODEVICE Device to use if .Fn sio_open is called with .Dv SIO_DEVANY as the .Fa name argument. .It Ev SNDIO_DEBUG The debug level: may be a value between 0 and 2. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr pledge 2 , .Xr mio_open 3 , .Xr sioctl_open 3 , .Xr audio 4 , .Xr sndio 7 , .Xr sndiod 8 , .Xr audio 9 .Sh HISTORY These functions first appeared in .Ox 4.5 . .Sh AUTHORS .An Alexandre Ratchov Aq Mt ratchov@openbsd.org .Sh BUGS The .Xr audio 4 driver doesn't drain playback buffers, thus if sndio is used to directly access an .Xr audio 4 device, the .Fn sio_stop function will stop playback immediately. .Pp If the application doesn't consume recorded data fast enough then .Dq "control messages" from the .Xr sndiod 8 server are delayed and consequently .Fn sio_onmove callback or volume changes may be delayed. .Pp The .Fn sio_open , .Fn sio_setpar , .Fn sio_getpar , .Fn sio_getcap , .Fn sio_start , .Fn sio_stop , and .Fn sio_flush functions may block for a very short period of time, thus they should be avoided in code sections where blocking is not desirable.