Extensibility of wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture

[kainino0x]

Meeting Jan 4:

• Make WGPUSurfaceTexture extensible so user can request extra stuff in the future?
• KN: Prefer to make it extensible just in case
• (discussion, don’t know of a case where we might extend it)
• Keep as is, but make WGPUSurfaceTexture extensible
• Related to: Should more functions take extensible structs? #216
  • ~Actually we already talked about making GetCurrentTexture extensible and it seems we wanted to do that.~

(Actually looking at the comment there I'm not sure if I meant "OK to make extensible" or "OK to not make extensible". I suspect I actually meant "OK to not make extensible" which is the opposite of what I thought this morning.)

typedef struct WGPUSurfaceTexture {
    WGPUChainedStruct * nextInChain;
    WGPUTexture texture;
    WGPUSurfaceGetCurrentTextureStatus status;
} WGPUSurfaceTexture WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

---

Though writing this out, I realize making WGPUSurfaceTexture extensible isn't necessarily the same as making GetCurrentTexture extensible, since WGPUSurfaceTexture is an output structure. Nothing stops us from extending it with input components (making it a mixed-input-output structure) but the name "WGPUSurfaceTexture" doesn't make much sense in that case.

Right now we have lots of in-extensibility but only some out-extensibility: wgpuGetInstanceFeatures, wgpuAdapterGetProperties, wgpuAdapterGetLimits, wgpuDeviceGetLimits, wgpuSurfaceGetCapabilities. None of these are mixed-input-output but they could be if we needed them to be. (thinking about made me think of #260 ^_^)

A few options:

0a - Do not worry about extensibility now and make a GetCurrentTexture2() if we ever need it.

typedef struct WGPUSurfaceTexture {
    WGPUTexture texture;
    WGPUSurfaceGetCurrentTextureStatus status;
} WGPUSurfaceTexture WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

void wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface, WGPUSurfaceTexture *);

0b - Alternate form.

WGPUSurfaceTexture wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface);

1 - Do the thing we discussed and defer a decision on whether to allow input members in the chain. (EDIT: fixed chain constness here)

typedef struct WGPUSurfaceTexture {
    WGPUChainedStructOut * nextInChain; // tbd if this is out-only or in-out
    WGPUTexture texture;
    WGPUSurfaceGetCurrentTextureStatus status;
} WGPUSurfaceTexture WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

void wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface, WGPUSurfaceTexture *);

2 - Explicitly make it mixed in-out. I struggle with naming in this one. (EDIT: fixed chain constness here)

typedef struct WGPUGetCurrentTextureArguments {
    WGPUChainedStructOut * nextInChain; // chain may have both in and out members
    WGPUTexture texture; // out
    WGPUSurfaceGetCurrentTextureStatus status; // out
} WGPUGetCurrentTextureArguments WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

void wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface, WGPUGetCurrentTextureArguments *);

3a - Split in and out and make only 'in' extensible, but notably the 'in' structs could contain out-pointers:

typedef struct WGPUSurfaceTexture {
    WGPUTexture texture;
    WGPUSurfaceGetCurrentTextureStatus status;
} WGPUSurfaceTexture WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

typedef struct WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo {
    WGPUChainedStruct const * nextInChain;
    // (no other members)
} WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

WGPUSurfaceTexture wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface, WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo const *);

// Example of how an out-pointer would work:

// Can be chained in WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo
typedef struct WGPUGetCurrentTextureMoreInfo {
    WGPUChainedStruct const * nextInChain;
    WGPUBool preferOverlayCandidate; // in
    size_t * indexInNativeSwapChain; // out pointer, optional
    WGPUBool * isOverlayCandidate; // out pointer, optional
};

3b - Technically the outputs could all be in the Info struct.

typedef struct WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo {
    WGPUChainedStruct const * nextInChain;
    WGPUTexture * texture; // out pointer, required
    WGPUSurfaceGetCurrentTextureStatus * status; // out pointer, probably required
} WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo WGPU_STRUCTURE_ATTRIBUTE;

WGPUStatus wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface, WGPUGetCurrentTextureInfo const *);

There are a bunch more permutations on this (like having both an extensible-in and extensible-out struct) but you get the idea. I'm stopping here because 3a seems actually decent.

• [ ] Also note options 1, 2, and 3a will require adding a new GetCurrentTextureStatus for a validation error (like passing an invalid SType).

[kainino0x]

• Related to: Should more functions take extensible structs? #216
  • ~Actually we already talked about making GetCurrentTexture extensible and it seems we wanted to do that.~

Actually looking at the comment there I'm not sure if I meant "OK to make extensible" or "OK to not make extensible". I suspect I actually meant "OK to not make extensible" which is the opposite of what I thought this morning.

[kainino0x]

Jan 25 meeting:

• Does WGPUSurfaceTexture need to be extensible? Maybe
• RM: Make WGPUSurfaceTexture a managed object? Add methods to it to return extra info
  • RM: How would it behave on Present()?
  • KN: Probably it doesn’t change, only its Texture changes
• Return WGPUSurfaceTexture+Status? Or make status a getter on WGPUSurfaceTexture?
  • RM: Prefer WGPUSurfaceTexture+Status
  • KN: Prefer making status a getter so we don’t have so many definitions
  • KN: Then would be no extensibility if status is an error status
• KN: Occurs to me we don’t have output extensibility for any of the callbacks right now
• KN: Not sure this is worth the complexity
  • RM: Find 3a somewhat confusing because both in and out are in the same structure
  • RM: Also unusual to return a struct by value
• KN: Would prefer to have both input and output extensibility over adding a managed WGPUSurfaceTexture (especially if WGPUSurfaceTexture+Status)
  • (Wish we could just have WGPUSurfaceTexture be a subclass of WGPUTexture.)
• Separate in-extensibility and out-extensibility
• void wgpuSurfaceGetCurrentTexture(WGPUSurface, WGPUGetCurrentTextureDescriptor const *, WGPUSurfaceTexture *);

[Kangz]

Likewise, should be have some form of both in and out extensibility for present? For example to request present timings.

[kainino0x]

That's a good idea. Let me file that under #216.