Subject: Re: [PATCH 5/7] d80211: indicate if unassociate/radio off status

From: mabbas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 12:47:40 -0700

Dan Williams wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-09-21 at 19:01 +0200, Jiri Benc wrote:
>   
>> On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:49:35 -0700, mabbas wrote:
>>     
>>> This patch indicate unassociated and radio off status
>>> in name field
>>>       
>> NAK.
>>
>> Fix SIOCGIWAP handler instead.
>>     
>
> Right; the _one_ place anyone should ever have to check for unassociated
> status is SIOCGIWAP.  That's it.  Lets not put stuff in two different
> places.  If it's all 0s, all 4s (stupid prism) or all Fs (i forget who
> does that), it's invalid and you're not connected.
>
> About the worst thing we can start doing is having to parse arbitrary
> strings to find out driver/card status.  That's the same problem with
> "<hidden>" which hope DIES DIES DIES with d80211.  If the AP is hidden,
> then it has a _blank_ SSID, not hacked to "<hidden>".
>
> For radio off, that may be a legitimate thing that's not covered in WE
> yet.  But isn't that the domain of SIOCGIWPOWER, or is that just used to
> set PM modes and not return current status? [1]
>
> Dan
>
> [1] which would seem like an oversight to correct in nl80211
>
>   

SIOCGIWPOWER is for power save mode it has nothing to do with radio off, we can 
indicate radio off in txpower field i guess. I have question regarding SIOCGIWAP. if
I do #iwconfig ap 00:13:23:87:150:150, wont iwconfig always show  00:13:23:87:150:150 
for SIOCGIWAP regardless if we associated or not? can we display blank in this case to 
indicate not connected?
Mohamed 

>>  Jiri