iLiad Battery status

[Iñigo]

Hi there,

while looking at /proc on the iLiad and dreaming on some ideas I noticed there isn't an easy way to get the battery status as it doesn't exist any related file on /proc.

So, professional as I am I looked at the sources and there was the answer, hidden inside eventPoller function in powerMgr.c file [1]: ioctl call to /dev/battery device.

Initially I thougth on writing a simple lua script translating that code, but as lua itself has no ioctl module it can't be done with pure lua.
My second try was with python (use ericshliao's [2]), you can find the proof of concept on attached file.

Future? now I'm dreaming with an iLiad extension module for lua, which would include these useful functions to power our lua scripts...

Hope you find it interesting,
Iñigo

[1] http://iliad.hpelbers.org/irexdox/po...8c-source.html
[2] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30169

[hansel]

Ioctl() is no simple to handle in a generic way: the parameters are often pointers to structs. But Perl, Python, and Python do it, so.....

It's not difficult to write functions in C, and to make a Lua module with it. I did that with liberdm once, to play with the screen refresh functions. We could make a Lua module with handy Iliad functions. After that you could use them in a Lua script. Of course this is not very handy for experimenting. Directly scripting in Lua would be much cooler.

Edit: There is a Lua module to pack / unpack C-structs exists: http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/struct/
Edit: I asked on the Lua list... Alien (http://alien.luaforge.net/) might be a way to implement things like ioctl(). It requires libffi (which is not present on the Iliad, but is a cool thing to have). I'll have a look at this when I have some more spare time...

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by hansel

Ioctl() is no simple to handle in a generic way: the parameters are often pointers to structs. But Perl, Python, and Python do it, so.....

It's not difficult to write functions in C, and to make a Lua module with it. I did that with liberdm once, to play with the screen refresh functions. We could make a Lua module with handy Iliad functions. After that you could use them in a Lua script. Of course this is not very handy for experimenting. Directly scripting in Lua would be much cooler.

Edit: There is a Lua module to pack / unpack C-structs exists: http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/struct/
Edit: I asked on the Lua list... Alien (http://alien.luaforge.net/) might be a way to implement things like ioctl(). It requires libffi (which is not present on the Iliad, but is a cool thing to have). I'll have a look at this when I have some more spare time...

I've read your message to lua mailing list this morning. I also searched but didn't find anything useful either.

I'm for the module for useful functions. We don't need a fully operational ioctl, only those handy functions exported to lua world. F.e. pm_getBatteryStatus, hw_detectMMC, and so on.
This extension module should be included with iliad-lua package, so any lua developer could use it.

In fact my bat.py code was to drive us to this discussion

So, which other functions are interesting to be wrapped?

Iñigo

PS: if I underestand correctly, lua alien/FFI module is like ctypes in python, a way to call functions present in any dynamic library of the OS. Ok, it could be quite useful.

[hansel]

Originally Posted by Iñigo

PS: if I underestand correctly, lua alien/FFI module is like ctypes in python, a way to call functions present in any dynamic library of the OS. Ok, it could be quite useful.

I managed (with quite some hacking) to cross-build the Alien module for the Iliad. I can 'require' with Lua on the Iliad, but it still has some issues: it will not function properly without modifications... Don't know if it is worth the effort yet...

Originally Posted by Iñigo

I'm for the module for useful functions.

That would be easier, but less challenging

[hansel]

I managed to build a Lua package with Alien. Alien passes its own included tests...

[hansel]

It works! You can call any function in a shard library without compiling!

I'll update the official Lua package soon. I attach the preliminary version for those who want to play with it (install on the Iliad with ipkg install).

Iñigo: thanks for pushing me into a new adventure

 #!/usr/bin/env lua
require "alien"
require 'bit'
local bor, band, lshift = bit.bor, bit.band, bit.lshift

local function _IOR(x,y,t)
  local IOCPARM_MASK = 0x7f
  local IOC_READ = 0x80000000
  local a   = lshift(string.byte(x),8)
  local b   = lshift(band(t, IOCPARM_MASK), 16)
  return bor(IOC_READ, a, b, y)
end

-- open the library (the functions we want are in the default libs)
local lib = alien.default

-- get the functions we need
local open, close, ioctl = lib.open, lib.close, lib.ioctl

-- specify the API
open:types  {ret='int', 'string', 'int'}
close:types {ret='int', 'int'}
ioctl:types {ret='int', 'int', 'int', 'ref int'}

local ret, fd, val
local READ_CHARGE = _IOR('b', 1, 4)
local READ_TIME   = _IOR('b', 2, 4)

fd = open("/dev/battery", 0)

ret, val = ioctl(fd, READ_TIME, 0)
if val == 0xffff then
  ret, val = ioctl(fd, READ_CHARGE, 0)
  print(string.format('Battery: %d%%, now charging', val))
else
  print(string.format("Battery: %d:%2d hours remaining", math.floor(val/60), val%60))
end

close(fd)