Build libgpiod the "New GPIO Interface for User Space"

sgjava · January 24, 2018

This has been replaced by: User Space IO get more details on this thread.

Well, it's time to say goodbye to sysfs and hello to libgpiod! @zador.blood.stained pointed me in the right direction, but you need to do one little hack I'll explain below involving compiler_types.h. I tested this on a NanoPi Duo, but it should work on any mainline Armbian release (and other distros as well) as long as the kernel is >= 4.8. Try ls /dev/gpiochip* and see if anything is listed. If so, then proceed.

I'm continuing work on my Github site https://github.com/sgjava/libgpiod-extra, so please report any issues there. There is an Armbian install script that automates the steps below I generated the Python wrapper, but there's a lot of functions to test, so I'm not sure of the quality. I'm working on some simple Python tests.

sudo armbian-config, Software, Headers
sudo apt-get install libtool pkg-config
git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libgpiod/libgpiod.git
cd libgpiod
mkdir -p include/linux
cp /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/linux/compiler_types.h include/linux/.
./autogen.sh --enable-tools=yes --prefix=/usr/local CFLAGS="-I/usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/uapi -Iinclude"
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

Let's try some commands:

sudo gpiodetect

gpiochip0 [1c20800.pinctrl] (224 lines)
gpiochip1 [1f02c00.pinctrl] (32 lines)

sudo gpioinfo | grep "\[used\]"

    line 10:      unnamed "nanopi:blue:status" output active-high [used]
   line 166:      unnamed         "cd"   input active-high [used]
   line 202:      unnamed "interrupt"   input active-high [used]
   line 205:      unnamed      "reset" output   active-low [used]
   line   6:      unnamed          "?" output active-high [used]
   line   7:      unnamed   "vcc-wifi" output active-high [used]
   line 10:      unnamed "nanopi:green:pwr" output active-high [used]

Notice how it found the Duo's built in LEDs

Now let's test the Duo's built in button (press and release 3 times):

sudo gpiomon --num-events=3 --rising-edge gpiochip1 3

event: RISING EDGE offset: 3 timestamp: [1516774143.944174870]
event: RISING EDGE offset: 3 timestamp: [1516774145.123474395]
event: RISING EDGE offset: 3 timestamp: [1516774145.987531088]

Wire up LED (the normal way) and use Duo's IOG11 then to turn on and off:

sudo gpioset gpiochip0 203=0

sudo gpioset gpiochip0 203=1

Python code

import time
from libgpiod.libgpiod import *

chip = gpiod_chip_open("/dev/gpiochip0")
line = gpiod_chip_get_line(chip, 203)
# The will set line for output and set initial value (LED on)
if gpiod_line_request_output(line, "test", 0) == 0:
    time.sleep(3)
    # LED off
    gpiod_line_set_value(line, 1)
    gpiod_line_release(line)
gpiod_chip_close(chip)

More reading at https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/11/03/learn-more-about-linuxs-new-gpio-user-space-subsystem-libgpiod and https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libgpiod/libgpiod.git/tree/README. Maybe @Larry Bank will work on ArmbianIO II It looks like in the old Github site there was a milestone to create Python and C++ wrappers https://github.com/brgl/libgpiod/milestone/3. Once I learn more about libgpiod I may just generate them like I did for ArmbianIO.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Tido
added note for: User Space IO

smile · January 27, 2018

Hi, thank you for this work!

is it suitable for orange pi one?

as I can see your lib for piton, but can you share c++ example with interrupts and call back function?

sgjava · January 28, 2018

If it runs on mainline and you see something listed using ls /dev/gpiochip* then there's a good chance it will work, so you'll have to test it yourself. libgpiod is written in C, but the author said he's working on C++ 11 bindings. Right now I have one C example and a few Python ones in my project https://github.com/sgjava/libgpiod-extra. For now you'll need to do blocking callbacks (built in) or just stick a wait for edge in a thread. gpiod queues events, so you will not miss any like sysfs. I'll have a Python threaded callback example soon.

sgjava · January 29, 2018

OK, I whipped up a simple Python program using a thread to wait for an edge event while the main program is doing something else. https://github.com/sgjava/libgpiod-extra/blob/master/python/buttonthread.py

You can pass --chip with GPIO chip number and --line for the line (pin) where your built in button is located. Really no need for IRQs since the events are queued and the thread is waiting on the edge to happen. You can use the thread to do a callback using OOP and an Observer pattern. This is more elegant than having C callback to Python, Java, etc.

smile · January 29, 2018

thank you very! I`ll try this. it is good info about c++ std11

sgjava · January 29, 2018

Just finished up the JNA Java bindings. LedTest for Java now works!

sgjava · February 2, 2018

And the Java thread example https://github.com/sgjava/libgpiod-extra/blob/master/java/src/com/codeferm/demo/ButtonThread.java

smile · February 11, 2018

I got libgpiood working at orange pi one.

My question is about internal resistors, when line direction is INPUT

what about pull_up and pull_down commands ((( ?

sgjava · February 18, 2018

Did you look at the C header?

/**
 * @brief Miscellaneous GPIO request flags.
 */
enum {
	GPIOD_LINE_REQUEST_FLAG_OPEN_DRAIN	= GPIOD_BIT(0),
	/**< The line is an open-drain port. */
	GPIOD_LINE_REQUEST_FLAG_OPEN_SOURCE	= GPIOD_BIT(1),
	/**< The line is an open-source port. */
	GPIOD_LINE_REQUEST_FLAG_ACTIVE_LOW	= GPIOD_BIT(2),
	/**< The active state of the line is low (high is the default). */
};

Common GPIO Properties
======================

These properties are met through all the other documents of the GPIO interface
and it is useful to understand them, especially if you need to define GPIO
mappings.

Active-High and Active-Low
--------------------------
It is natural to assume that a GPIO is "active" when its output signal is 1
("high"), and inactive when it is 0 ("low"). However in practice the signal of a
GPIO may be inverted before is reaches its destination, or a device could decide
to have different conventions about what "active" means. Such decisions should
be transparent to device drivers, therefore it is possible to define a GPIO as
being either active-high ("1" means "active", the default) or active-low ("0"
means "active") so that drivers only need to worry about the logical signal and
not about what happens at the line level.

Open Drain and Open Source
--------------------------
Sometimes shared signals need to use "open drain" (where only the low signal
level is actually driven), or "open source" (where only the high signal level is
driven) signaling. That term applies to CMOS transistors; "open collector" is
used for TTL. A pullup or pulldown resistor causes the high or low signal level.
This is sometimes called a "wire-AND"; or more practically, from the negative
logic (low=true) perspective this is a "wire-OR".

One common example of an open drain signal is a shared active-low IRQ line.
Also, bidirectional data bus signals sometimes use open drain signals.

Some GPIO controllers directly support open drain and open source outputs; many
don't. When you need open drain signaling but your hardware doesn't directly
support it, there's a common idiom you can use to emulate it with any GPIO pin
that can be used as either an input or an output:

 LOW:	gpiod_direction_output(gpio, 0) ... this drives the signal and overrides
	the pullup.

 HIGH:	gpiod_direction_input(gpio) ... this turns off the output, so the pullup
	(or some other device) controls the signal.

The same logic can be applied to emulate open source signaling, by driving the
high signal and configuring the GPIO as input for low. This open drain/open
source emulation can be handled transparently by the GPIO framework.

If you are "driving" the signal high but gpiod_get_value(gpio) reports a low
value (after the appropriate rise time passes), you know some other component is
driving the shared signal low. That's not necessarily an error. As one common
example, that's how I2C clocks are stretched:  a slave that needs a slower clock
delays the rising edge of SCK, and the I2C master adjusts its signaling rate
accordingly.

helfis · August 6, 2018

On 1/24/2018 at 6:35 AM, sgjava said:

I'm continuing work on my Github site https://github.com/sgjava/libgpiod-extra, so please report any issues there. There is an Armbian install script that automates the steps below I generated the Python wrapper, but there's a lot of functions to test, so I'm not sure of the quality. I'm working on some simple Python tests.

This side is deleated

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libgpiod/libgpiod.git/commit/?h=v1.1.x

Tido · August 7, 2018

@sgjava as mentioned by helfis, the link in the first post is dead. Can you add a comment there or point it to the right URL?

sgjava · August 7, 2018

https://github.com/sgjava/userspaceio is my github and libgopid is at https://github.com/brgl/libgpiod

Srini · September 25, 2018

On 1/24/2018 at 1:35 PM, sgjava said:
This has been replaced by: User Space IO get more details on this thread.

Well, it's time to say goodbye to sysfs and hello to libgpiod! @zador.blood.stained pointed me in the right direction, but you need to do one little hack I'll explain below involving compiler_types.h. I tested this on a NanoPi Duo, but it should work on any mainline Armbian release (and other distros as well) as long as the kernel is >= 4.8. Try ls /dev/gpiochip* and see if anything is listed. If so, then proceed.

I'm continuing work on my Github site https://github.com/sgjava/libgpiod-extra, so please report any issues there. There is an Armbian install script that automates the steps below I generated the Python wrapper, but there's a lot of functions to test, so I'm not sure of the quality. I'm working on some simple Python tests.

sudo armbian-config, Software, Headers

sudo apt-get install libtool pkg-config

git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libgpiod/libgpiod.git

cd libgpiod

mkdir -p include/linux

cp /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/linux/compiler_types.h include/linux/.

./autogen.sh --enable-tools=yes --prefix=/usr/local CFLAGS="-I/usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/uapi -Iinclude"

make

sudo make install

sudo ldconfig

Let's try some commands:

sudo gpiodetect

gpiochip0 [1c20800.pinctrl] (224 lines)
gpiochip1 [1f02c00.pinctrl] (32 lines)

sudo gpioinfo | grep "\[used\]"

    line 10:      unnamed "nanopi:blue:status" output active-high [used]
   line 166:      unnamed         "cd"   input active-high [used]
   line 202:      unnamed "interrupt"   input active-high [used]
   line 205:      unnamed      "reset" output   active-low [used]
   line   6:      unnamed          "?" output active-high [used]
   line   7:      unnamed   "vcc-wifi" output active-high [used]
   line 10:      unnamed "nanopi:green:pwr" output active-high [used]

Notice how it found the Duo's built in LEDs

Now let's test the Duo's built in button (press and release 3 times):

sudo gpiomon --num-events=3 --rising-edge gpiochip1 3

event: RISING EDGE offset: 3 timestamp: [1516774143.944174870]
event: RISING EDGE offset: 3 timestamp: [1516774145.123474395]
event: RISING EDGE offset: 3 timestamp: [1516774145.987531088]

Wire up LED (the normal way) and use Duo's IOG11 then to turn on and off:

sudo gpioset gpiochip0 203=0

sudo gpioset gpiochip0 203=1

Python code
import time
from libgpiod.libgpiod import *

chip = gpiod_chip_open("/dev/gpiochip0")
line = gpiod_chip_get_line(chip, 203)
# The will set line for output and set initial value (LED on)
if gpiod_line_request_output(line, "test", 0) == 0:
    time.sleep(3)
    # LED off
    gpiod_line_set_value(line, 1)
    gpiod_line_release(line)
gpiod_chip_close(chip)
More reading at https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/11/03/learn-more-about-linuxs-new-gpio-user-space-subsystem-libgpiod and https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libgpiod/libgpiod.git/tree/README. Maybe @Larry Bank will work on ArmbianIO II It looks like in the old Github site there was a milestone to create Python and C++ wrappers https://github.com/brgl/libgpiod/milestone/3. Once I learn more about libgpiod I may just generate them like I did for ArmbianIO.

@sgjava, could you describe how to install Linux headers for the raspberry-CM3 target, I am running the latest kernel, built and install, I cloned the kernel from "git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux " which falls to be a kernel version 4.4.21-v7+ , I have even tried installing the header from the kernel build directory using the command "make headers_install" but still it is not installing all the required include file like "linux/gpio.h" for building the libgpiod. I noticed you were successfull in building the libgpiod on raspberry. please give some tips I am literally blocked. Appreciate your help. regards,Srini

Rami Khawaly · April 11, 2019

Hi, did you manage to build this library for NanoPi A64 on ubuntu? i'm not able to run the make, it keep fails with missing files

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