[pulseaudio-discuss] Handling of port latency offsets

[Georg Chini]

Hi,

during my work on module-loopback I came upon an issue regarding the 
handling
of the port latency offsets.
The functions pa_{source,sink}_get_latency_within_thread() return the 
latencies
including the offset. Those functions are used to determine the amount 
that has
to be rewound during a sink move and also to calculate the time a volume 
change
is delayed.

I think it is wrong in those situations to include the offset, 
especially if a user sets
very large or very negative offsets. If you have a large negative offset 
for example,
the sink will never be rewound on a move because get_latency_in_thread() 
always
returns 0. If the offset is large and positive, you might end up 
rewinding too much,
although this is limited by max_rewind.
A similar thought applies to the delay of the volume changes, although 
it is surely
less critical there.

Am I right or do I miss something?

Would it be a good idea to let the functions return a structure 
containing the
actual latency and the offset in separate variables and let the caller 
sort out
if it needs the offset or not?

Regards
              Georg