[LAD] adding session notifications to jack

[David Robillard]

On Sat, 2009-11-21 at 23:36 +0100, torbenh wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 04:37:17PM -0500, David Robillard wrote:
[...]
> > What is this unique ID?  Unique ID of what?
> 
> unique id, which is meant to persistent. a unique client id for the
> session. 
> jack_client_open is extended to accept this uuid. so upon session
> restore, the client will have the same uuid again.
> and the session manager will be able to query its jack client name.
> and then be able connect things again.

Is there a purpose to this ID other than getting the client name?  If
it's about client name, we should just use the client name.

> i have added:
> 
> void jack_client_set_cookie( jack_client_t *client, const char *key, const char *value );
> char *jack_get_cookie_by_uuid( jack_client_t *client, const char *uuid, const char *key )
> 
> now. this allows for publishing such things.

Excellent.  Jack has needed a metadata system really, really badly for
ages.  Need to be able to set stuff for ports too though.  This could
elegantly solve so many long standing problems of jack (e.g. the auto
connect problem).

However, notes from a metadata nerd:

- The key should REALLY REALLY be a URI.  The manager (or whoever else,
including JACK itself) needs to be able to actually infer some meaning
from a "cookie", or the system isn't really that useful.  Because this
is persistent, and can be used to convey meaningful information, using a
free text (i.e. meaningless) key is an extremely bad idea.

- There should probably be an optional const char *type parameter, to
specify the type of the value.

I still don't see why this uuid is needed when any existing client
already has a unique name.

> > But this leads me to the main point I want to make:
> > 
> > My take on this general thing is that a simple API like this is very
> > definitely the right path, but if anything I would like it not even tied
> > to Jack itself either.  The reason session management has failed to take
> > hold is too much implementation-defined crap, breaking APIs, complexity
> > to implement, and all that kind of thing.
> > 
> > How about taking it one step farther:  define this API in a single C
> > header, which would be very small, not tied to ANY implementation
> > whatsoever, and implementable by both plugins and hosts (this last part
> > is a very big win IMHO).  All this header would define is a descriptor
> > (struct) with the necessary methods.  Sort of a ladspa.h for session
> > management, except even simpler.  How you actually get this descriptor
> > would be the only implementation dependent part (e.g. a host could pass
> > it to a plugin, or Jack could have a single new call to return it).
> 
> interesting idea. i am not sure about the semantics of the reply strings
> in the plugin case though.

I don't understand what the reply string means.  You said "return a
string which specifies, how they want to be restarted".  Specifies
what/how, precisely?

Cheers,

-dr