[pulseaudio-discuss] pactl percentage bug fix

[Sean Greenslade]

On Sun, Jun 05, 2022 at 01:51:55AM +0100, Patrick May wrote:
> On 04/06/2022 08:48, Sean Greenslade wrote:
>
> > While debugging, I did notice another issue that I was uncertain of how
> > to solve. The detection of absolute values vs. relative values is based
> > on the presence of a plus or minus at the start of the value. This is
> > fine for everything except decibels, since absolute decibel values will
> > often be negative numbers. The way the code sits now, it's impossible to
> > pass an absolute negative decibel value. Probably not a huge deal, but
> > it seemed worth pointing out.
>
> I tested it with
> 
> pactl -- set-sink-volume 0 0db
> 
> and it sets the volume to 100%. So the ability to specify absolute decibel
> values is only useful if you like blasting stuff at greater than or equal to
> 100% volume

As I said, it's a bug. When I said it's probably not a huge deal, I
meant in the sense that I doubt many people have ever tried to use the
decibel versions of this command, seeing as this bug makes the absolute
decibel inputs nearly useless.

My reason for bringing it up was to try and solicit opinions on how best
to fix it. The current method of assuming a "-" always means relative is
not good, but I can't think of a clean way to fix it. Less clean options
that jump to mind:
- Add a new command, e.g. "set-sink-decibels-absolute -3dB"
- Add a new suffix variant, e.g. "set-sink-volume -3dBAbs"
  (note that "dBA" is not acceptable, since that has a specific meaning
  with regards to sound measurement)
- Have a prefix for absolute numbers, e.g. "set-sink-volume =-3dB"

What do other people think?

--Sean