[RFC PATCH libevdev] Revamp the API once again

[David Herrmann]

Hi Peter

On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 3:13 AM, Peter Hutterer
<peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> Another look at the current API showed some inconsistencies, rectified
> in this commit:
>
> libevdev_kernel_*: modify the underlying kernel device
> libevdev_event_type_*: something with an event type
> libevdev_event_code_*: something with an event code
> libevdev_event_*: struct input_event-related functions (i.e. not device-related)
> libevdev_property_*: something with a property
> libevdev_*: anything applying to a device
>
> Hopefully that's the last API change. Current symbols deprecated and aliased.
>
> Signed-off-by: Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer at who-t.net>
> ---
> Bikeshedding appreciated here. I think I'm happy with this API, or at least
> one that prefixes everything similarly. A couple of more comments:

The API looks good to me. It's kernel-style, I like that. But there is
one thing missing: A reverse-lookup of libevdev_get_event_type_name()
and friends.
We often have the situation where we allow text-based configurations
and then we want code/type/..-name to code lookups. xkbcommon provides
this for keysyms, I'd like to put the same for kernel-style names into
libevdev. Otherwise, we have to duplicate it everywhere we parse
configurations.

xkbcommon uses a simple binary-search on strings with a python-script
to create the tables. I wrote that, so we could easily copy it over to
libevdev without thinking of copyright issues. But before doing the
work, I'd like to know whether that would actually be accepted?
Proposed API is:

  int libevdev_parse_{type,syn,key,rel,abs,sw,msc,led,rep,snd,bus,mt_tool,ff}(const
char *name);
This takes a string, looks it up and returns the given ID. For each
type, names with and without prefix are accepted. That means, when
parsing keys, we allow "KEY_ESC" and "ESC" and both result in KEY_ESC.
The given types are:
  type: EV_* constants
  syn: SYN_* constants
  key: KEY_* and BTN_* constants. I think libevdev_parse_btn() should
be an alias for libevdev_parse_key().
  rel: REL_* constants
  abs: ABS_* constants
  sw: SW_* constants
  msc: MSC_* constants
  led: LED_* constants
  rep: REP_* constants
  snd: SND_* constants
  bus: BUS_* constants
  mt_tool: MT_TOOL_* constants
  ff: FF_* constants
I would omit any *_MAX and *_CNT constants as these are not constant..
This includes basically all constants from linux/input.h

  int libevdev_parse_event(struct input_event *out, const char *description);
This is a convenience helper which first parses the prefix of
@description for EV,SYN,KEY,... and then the suffix via the helpers
above. It fills in @type and @code of @out.

Comments?
David