[Nut-upsdev] On ups.status CHRG/DISCHRG Vs battery.charger.status

[Arnaud Quette]

Hi NUT developers,

part of the 2.7.3 release, we are about to merge the below branch / PR for
the bcmxcp drivers family:
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/pull/158
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/tree/pull_158_bcmxcp_rebased

It has introduced the battery.charger.status variable, which is something I
wanted to implement since around 2007.

However, while considering a similar implementation for usbhid-ups, and
thinking a bit more broadly, this new variable tends to collide with the
CHRG / DISCHRG status bits from ups.status, and adding 2 more (floating and
resting).

There, we have 2 options:
1) Keep the legacy CHRG / DISCHRG status bits for ups.status, along with
the complementary ones for battery.charger.status. And advocate (document)
for the use of / switch to the latter, that is more suitable for publishing
such information. All that with an impact on all the NUT driver, and a
transition period to address that cleanly.
2) Add the 2 other status bits (FLOATING and RESTING) for ups.status, still
along with the same new ones for battery.charger.status

I'm personally more in favor of (1), but the long history of NUT makes that
(2) would probably be more suitable. An hybrid approach could also be:
apply (2) (new status bits), and apply the transition of (1).

Feedback and comments warmly welcome.
Going to also push this comment on the PR #158, for the sake of completion.

cheers,
Arno
-- 
Eaton Data Center Automation - Opensource Leader
NUT (Network UPS Tools) Project Leader - http://www.networkupstools.org
Debian Developer - http://www.debian.org
Free Software Developer - http://arnaud.quette.fr
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