Documentation/process/debugging/media_specific_debugging_guide.rst
Source file repositories/reference/linux-study-clean/Documentation/process/debugging/media_specific_debugging_guide.rst
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- Linux kernel
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Documentation/process/debugging/media_specific_debugging_guide.rst- Extension
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- Domain
- Support Tooling And Documentation
- Bucket
- Documentation
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- Support Tooling And Documentation: documentation
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- atlas-only
Why This File Exists
Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.
- Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.
Dependency Surface
- No C-style include directives detected by the generator.
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Annotated Snippet
.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
============================================
Debugging and tracing in the media subsystem
============================================
This document serves as a starting point and lookup for debugging device
drivers in the media subsystem and to debug these drivers from userspace.
.. contents::
:depth: 3
General debugging advice
------------------------
For general advice see the :doc:`general advice document
</process/debugging/index>`.
The following sections show you some of the available tools.
dev_debug module parameter
--------------------------
Every video device provides a ``dev_debug`` parameter, which allows to get
further insights into the IOCTLs in the background.::
# cat /sys/class/video4linux/video3/name
rkvdec
# echo 0xff > /sys/class/video4linux/video3/dev_debug
# dmesg -wH
[...] videodev: v4l2_open: video3: open (0)
[ +0.000036] video3: VIDIOC_QUERYCAP: driver=rkvdec, card=rkvdec,
bus=platform:rkvdec, version=0x00060900, capabilities=0x84204000,
device_caps=0x04204000
For the full documentation see :ref:`driver-api/media/v4l2-dev:video device
debugging`
dev_dbg() / v4l2_dbg()
----------------------
Two debug print statements, which are specific for devices and for the v4l2
subsystem, avoid adding these to your final submission unless they have
long-term value for investigations.
For a general overview please see the
:ref:`process/debugging/driver_development_debugging_guide:printk() & friends`
guide.
- Difference between both?
- v4l2_dbg() utilizes v4l2_printk() under the hood, which further uses
printk() directly, thus it cannot be targeted by dynamic debug
- dev_dbg() can be targeted by dynamic debug
- v4l2_dbg() has a more specific prefix format for the media subsystem, while
dev_dbg only highlights the driver name and the location of the log
Dynamic debug
-------------
A method to trim down the debug output to your needs.
For general advice see the
:ref:`process/debugging/userspace_debugging_guide:dynamic debug` guide.
Here is one example, that enables all available pr_debug()'s within the file::
$ alias ddcmd='echo $* > /proc/dynamic_debug/control'
$ ddcmd '-p; file v4l2-h264.c +p'
$ grep =p /proc/dynamic_debug/control
Annotation
- Atlas domain: Support Tooling And Documentation / Documentation.
- Implementation status: atlas-only.
Implementation Notes
- This generated page is the file-by-file coverage layer; curated subsystem chapters should link here when they synthesize a multi-file control flow.
- Core OS pages should be promoted from atlas-only to deep-reviewed when they explain data structures, invariants, locking, lifecycle, and C implementation snippets.
- Driver-family pages are intentionally pattern-oriented unless they are part of the selected PCIe/NVMe representative device path.