It's more robust to have the version defined statically in a header file,
rather than dynamically generating it via git using a git tag. In case
git doesn't exist, or a different source control tool is used, it's
important to still have the uPy version number available.
SHORT, INT, LONG, LONGLONG, and unsigned (U*) variants are being defined.
This is done at compile using GCC-style predefined macros like
__SIZEOF_INT__. If the compiler doesn't have such defines, no such types
will be defined.
The recent implementation of the listen backlog meant that the logic to
test for readability of such a socket changed, and this commit updates the
logic to work again.
Array to hold waiting connections is in-place if backlog=1, else is a
dynamically allocated array. Incoming connections are processed FIFO
style to maintain fairness.
sizeof() can work in two ways: a) calculate size of already instantiated
structure ("sizeof variable") - in this case we already no layout; b) size
of structure decsription ("sizeof type"). In the latter case, LAYOUT_NATIVE
was assumed, but there should possibility to calculate size for other
layouts too. So, with this patch, there're now 2 forms:
uctypes.sizeof(struct)
uctypes.sizeof(struct_desc, layout)
This value is unused. It was an artifact of early draft design, but
bitfields were optimized to use scalar one-word encoding, to allow
compact encoding of typical multiple bitfields in MCU control
registers.
Since mbedtls 2.7.0 new digest functions were introduced with a "_ret"
suffix to allow the functions to return an error message (eg, if the
underlying hardware acceleration failed). These new functions must be used
instead of the old ones to prevent deprecation warnings, or link errors for
missing functions, depending on the mbedtls configuration.
This removes the need for a separate axtls build stage, and builds all
axtls object files along with other code. This simplifies and cleans up
the build process, automatically builds axtls when needed, and puts the
axtls object files in the correct $(BUILD) location.
The MicroPython axtls configuration file is provided in
extmod/axtls-include/config.h
The underlying socket can handling polling, and any other transparent ioctl
requests. Note that CPython handles the case of polling an ssl object by
polling the file descriptor of the underlying socket file, and that
behaviour is emulated here.
Otherwise they may be called on a socket that no longer exists.
For example, if the GC calls the finaliser on the socket and then reuses
its heap memory, the "callback" entry of the old socket may contain invalid
data. If lwIP then calls the TCP callback the code may try to call the
user callback object which is now invalid. The lwIP callbacks must be
deregistered during the closing of the socket, before all the pcb pointers
are set to NULL.
This feature is controlled at compile time by MICROPY_PY_URE_SUB, disabled
by default.
Thanks to @dmazzella for the original patch for this feature; see #3770.
This feature is controlled at compile time by
MICROPY_PY_URE_MATCH_SPAN_START_END, disabled by default.
Thanks to @dmazzella for the original patch for this feature; see #3770.
This feature is controlled at compile time by MICROPY_PY_URE_MATCH_GROUPS,
disabled by default.
Thanks to @dmazzella for the original patch for this feature; see #3770.
This will allow implementations other than axTLS.
This commit includes additions of checks and clarifications of exceptions
related to user input.
To make the interface cleaner, I've disallowed switching from encrypt to
decrypt in the same object, as this is not always possible with other
crypto libraries (not all libraries have AES_convert_key like axTLS).
Allow including crypto consts based on compilation settings. Disabled by
default to reduce code size; if one wants extra code readability, can
enable them.
The API follows guidelines of https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0272/,
but is optimized for code size, with the idea that full PEP 0272
compatibility can be added with a simple Python wrapper mode.
The naming of the module follows (u)hashlib pattern.
At the bare minimum, this module is expected to provide:
* AES128, ECB (i.e. "null") mode, encrypt only
Implementation in this commit is based on axTLS routines, and implements
following:
* AES 128 and 256
* ECB and CBC modes
* encrypt and decrypt
With this patch objects are only checked that they have the stream protocol
at the start of their use as a stream, and afterwards the efficient
mp_get_stream() helper is used to extract the stream protocol C methods.
This patch changes dupterm to call the native C stream methods on the
connected stream objects, instead of calling the Python readinto/write
methods. This is much more efficient for native stream objects like UART
and webrepl and doesn't require allocating a special dupterm array.
This change is a minor breaking change from the user's perspective because
dupterm no longer accepts pure user stream objects to duplicate on. But
with the recent addition of uio.IOBase it is possible to still create such
classes just by inheriting from uio.IOBase, for example:
import uio, uos
class MyStream(uio.IOBase):
def write(self, buf):
# existing write implementation
def readinto(self, buf):
# existing readinto implementation
uos.dupterm(MyStream())
Via the config value MICROPY_PY_UHASHLIB_SHA256. Default to enabled to
keep backwards compatibility.
Also add default value for the sha1 class, to at least document its
existence.
For consistency with other modules, and to help avoid clashes with the
actual underlying functions that do the hashing (eg
crypto-algorithms/sha256.c:sha256_update).
Following other C-level protocols, this VFS protocol is added to help
abstract away implementation details of the underlying VFS in an efficient
way. As a starting point, the import_stat function is put into this
protocol so that the VFS sub-system does not need to know about every VFS
implementation in order to do an efficient stat for importing files.
In the future it might be worth adding other functions to this protocol.
This VFS component allows to mount a host POSIX filesystem within the uPy
VFS sub-system. All traditional POSIX file access then goes through the
VFS, allowing to sandbox a uPy process to a certain sub-dir of the host
system, as well as mount other filesystem types alongside the host
filesystem.
If mbedtls_ctr_drbg_seed() is available in the mbedtls bulid then so should
be mbedtls_entropy_func(). Then it's up to the port to configure a valid
entropy source, eg via MBEDTLS_ENTROPY_HARDWARE_ALT.
Otherwise the "sock" member may have an undefined value if wrap_socket
fails with an exception and exits early, and then if the finaliser runs it
will try to close an invalid stream object.
Fixes issue #3828.
This matches CPython behaviour on Linux: a socket that is new and not
listening or connected is considered "hung up".
Thanks to @rkojedzinszky for the initial patch, PR #3457.
The order of function calls in an arithmetic expression is undefined and so
they must be written out as sequential statements.
Thanks to @dv-extrarius for reporting this issue, see issue #3690.
The 2nd and 3rd args of the ternary operator are treated like they are in
the same expression and must have similar types. void is not compatible
with int so that's why the compiler is complaining.
This patch moves the implementation of stream closure from a dedicated
method to the ioctl of the stream protocol, for each type that implements
closing. The benefits of this are:
1. Rounds out the stream ioctl function, which already includes flush,
seek and poll (among other things).
2. Makes calling mp_stream_close() on an object slightly more efficient
because it now no longer needs to lookup the close method and call it,
rather it just delegates straight to the ioctl function (if it exists).
3. Reduces code size and allows future types that implement the stream
protocol to be smaller because they don't need a dedicated close method.
Code size reduction is around 200 bytes smaller for x86 archs and around
30 bytes smaller for the bare-metal archs.
This patch takes the software SPI implementation from extmod/machine_spi.c
and moves it to a dedicated file in drivers/bus/softspi.c. This allows the
SPI driver to be used independently of the uPy runtime, making it a more
general component.
This patch eliminates heap allocation in the VFS FAT disk IO layer, when
calling the underlying readblocks/writeblocks methods. The bytearray
object that is passed to these methods is now allocated on the C stack
rather than the heap (it's only 4 words big).
This means that these methods should not retain a pointer to the buffer
object that is passed in, but this was already a restriction because the
original heap-allocated bytearray had its buffer passed by reference.
This patch just moves the definition of the wrapper object fat_vfs_open_obj
to the location of the definition of its function, which matches how it's
done in most other places in the code base.
The fat_vfs_ilistdir2() function was only used by fat_vfs_ilistdir_func()
so moving the former into the same file as the latter allows it to be
placed directly into the latter function, thus saving code size.
CPython doesn't allow SEEK_CUR with non-zero offset for files in text mode,
and uPy inherited this behaviour for both text and binary files. It makes
sense to provide full support for SEEK_CUR of binary-mode files in uPy, and
to do this in a minimal way means also allowing to use SEEK_CUR with
non-zero offsets on text-mode files. That seems to be a fair compromise.
Dramatically improves TCP sending throughput because without an explicit
call to tcp_output() the data is only sent to the lower layers via the
lwIP slow timer which (by default) ticks every 500ms.
Before this patch MP_BINARY_OP_IN had two meanings: coming from bytecode it
meant that the args needed to be swapped, but coming from within the
runtime meant that the args were already in the correct order. This lead
to some confusion in the code and comments stating how args were reversed.
It also lead to 2 bugs: 1) containment for a subclass of a native type
didn't work; 2) the expression "{True} in True" would illegally succeed and
return True. In both of these cases it was because the args to
MP_BINARY_OP_IN ended up being reversed twice.
To fix these things this patch introduces MP_BINARY_OP_CONTAINS which
corresponds exactly to the __contains__ special method, and this is the
operator that built-in types should implement. MP_BINARY_OP_IN is now only
emitted by the compiler and is converted to MP_BINARY_OP_CONTAINS by
swapping the arguments.
It's possible to use the methods (eg ilistdir) of a VFS FatFS object
without it being mounted in the VFS itself. This previously worked but
only because FatFS was "mounting" the filesystem automatically when any
function (eg f_opendir) was called. But it didn't work for ports that used
synchronisation objects (_FS_REENTRANT) because they are only initialised
via a call to f_mount. So, call f_mount explicitly when creating a new
FatFS object so that everything is set up correctly. Then also provide a
finaliser to do the f_umount call, but only if synchronisation objects are
enabled (since otherwise the f_umount call does nothing).
This patch simplifies the str creation API to favour the common case of
creating a str object that is not forced to be interned. To force
interning of a new str the new mp_obj_new_str_via_qstr function is added,
and should only be used if warranted.
Apart from simplifying the mp_obj_new_str function (and making it have the
same signature as mp_obj_new_bytes), this patch also reduces code size by a
bit (-16 bytes for bare-arm and roughly -40 bytes on the bare-metal archs).
The SHA1 hashing functionality is provided via the "axtls" library's
implementation, and hence is unavailable when the "axtls" library is not being
used. This change provides the same SHA1 hashing functionality when using the
"mbedtls" library by using its implementation instead.
If SSL_EAGAIN is returned (which is a feature of MicroPython's axTLS fork),
return EAGAIN.
Original axTLS returns SSL_OK both when there's no data to return to user
yet and when the underlying stream returns EAGAIN. That's not distinctive
enough, for example, original module code works well for blocking stream,
but will infinite-loop for non-blocking socket with EAGAIN. But if we fix
non-blocking case, blocking calls to .read() will return few None's initially
(while axTLS progresses thru handshake).
Using SSL_EAGAIN allows to fix non-blocking case without regressing the
blocking one.
Note that this only handles case of non-blocking reads of application data.
Initial handshake and writes still don't support non-blocking mode and must
be done in the blocking way.
Per the comment found here
https://github.com/micropython/micropython-esp32/issues/209#issuecomment-339855157,
this patch adds finaliser code to prevent memory leaks from ussl objects,
which is especially useful when memory for a ussl context is allocated
outside the uPy heap. This patch is in-line with the finaliser code found
in many modsocket implementations for various ports.
This feature is configured via MICROPY_PY_USSL_FINALISER and is disabled by
default because there may be issues using it when the ussl state *is*
allocated on the uPy heap, rather than externally.
VLAs can be expensive on stack usage due to stack alignment requirements,
and also the fact that extra local variables are needed to track the
dynamic size of the stack. So using fixed-size arrays when possible can
help to reduce code size and stack usage.
In this particular case, the maximum value of n_args in the VLA is 2 and so
it's more efficient to just allocate this array with a fixed size. This
reduces code size by around 30 bytes on Thumb2 and Xtensa archs. It also
reduces total stack usage of the function: on Thumb2 the usage with VLA is
between 40 and 48 bytes, which is reduced to 32; on Xtensa, VLA usage is
between 64 and 80 bytes, reduced to 32; on x86-64 it's at least 88 bytes
reduced to 80.
Without this the board will crash when deactivating a stream that doesn't
have a close() method (eg UART) or that raises an exception within the
method (eg user-defined function).
The uos.dupterm() signature and behaviour is updated to reflect the latest
enhancements in the docs. It has minor backwards incompatibility in that
it no longer accepts zero arguments.
The dupterm_rx helper function is moved from esp8266 to extmod and
generalised to support multiple dupterm slots.
A port can specify multiple slots by defining the MICROPY_PY_OS_DUPTERM
config macro to an integer, being the number of slots it wants to have;
0 means to disable the dupterm feature altogether.
The unix and esp8266 ports are updated to work with the new interface and
are otherwise unchanged with respect to functionality.
Header files that are considered internal to the py core and should not
normally be included directly are:
py/nlr.h - internal nlr configuration and declarations
py/bc0.h - contains bytecode macro definitions
py/runtime0.h - contains basic runtime enums
Instead, the top-level header files to include are one of:
py/obj.h - includes runtime0.h and defines everything to use the
mp_obj_t type
py/runtime.h - includes mpstate.h and hence nlr.h, obj.h, runtime0.h,
and defines everything to use the general runtime support functions
Additional, specific headers (eg py/objlist.h) can be included if needed.
Allow literal minus in char classes to be in trailing position, e.g. [a-c-].
(Previously, minus was allowed only at the start.)
This increases ARM Thumb2 code size by 8 bytes.
This patch also removes the empty type "pinbase_type" (which crashes if
accessed) and uses "machine_pinbase_type" instead as the type of the
PinBase singleton.
With MBEDTLS_DEBUG_C disabled the function mbedtls_debug_set_threshold()
doesn't exist. There's also no need to call mbedtls_ssl_conf_dbg() so a
few bytes can be saved on disabling that and not needing the mbedtls_debug
callback.
The unary-op/binary-op enums are already defined, and there are no
arithmetic tricks used with these types, so it makes sense to use the
correct enum type for arguments that take these values. It also reduces
code size quite a bit for nan-boxing builds.
This implementation ignores invalid characters in the input. This allows
it to decode the output of b2a_base64, and also mimics the behavior of
CPython.
- Changed: ValueError, TypeError, NotImplementedError
- OSError invocations unchanged, because the corresponding utility
function takes ints, not strings like the long form invocation.
- OverflowError, IndexError and RuntimeError etc. not changed for now
until we decide whether to add new utility functions.
Since the stride is specified in pixels, in a 4-bit horizontal format it
has to always be even, otherwise the computation is wrong and we can
write outside of the buffer sometimes.
The code conventions suggest using header guards, but do not define how
those should look like and instead point to existing files. However, not
all existing files follow the same scheme, sometimes omitting header guards
altogether, sometimes using non-standard names, making it easy to
accidentally pick a "wrong" example.
This commit ensures that all header files of the MicroPython project (that
were not simply copied from somewhere else) follow the same pattern, that
was already present in the majority of files, especially in the py folder.
The rules are as follows.
Naming convention:
* start with the words MICROPY_INCLUDED
* contain the full path to the file
* replace special characters with _
In addition, there are no empty lines before #ifndef, between #ifndef and
one empty line before #endif. #endif is followed by a comment containing
the name of the guard macro.
py/grammar.h cannot use header guards by design, since it has to be
included multiple times in a single C file. Several other files also do not
need header guards as they are only used internally and guaranteed to be
included only once:
* MICROPY_MPHALPORT_H
* mpconfigboard.h
* mpconfigport.h
* mpthreadport.h
* pin_defs_*.h
* qstrdefs*.h
VfsFat no longer has the listdir() method. Rather, if listdir()
functionality is needed then one should use uos.listdir() which will call
VfsFat.ilistdir().
This patch allows mounting of VFS objects right at the root directory, eg
os.mount(vfs, '/'). It still allows VFS's to be mounted at a path within
the root, eg os.mount(vfs, '/flash'), and such mount points will override
any paths within a VFS that is mounted at the root.
Peer-closed socket is both readable and writable: read will return EOF,
write - error. Without this poll will hang on such socket.
Note that we don't return POLLHUP, based on argumentation in
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/tech/poll.html that it should apply to
deeper disconnects, for example for networking, that would be link layer
disconnect (e.g. WiFi went down).
A shorter name takes less code size, less room in scripts and is faster to
type at the REPL.
Tests and HW-API examples are updated to reflect the change.
This implements the orginal idea is that Signal is a subclass of Pin, and
thus can accept all the same argument as Pin, and additionally, "inverted"
param. On the practical side, it allows to avoid many enclosed parenses for
a typical declararion, e.g. for Zephyr:
Signal(Pin(("GPIO_0", 1))).
Of course, passing a Pin to Signal constructor is still supported and is the
most generic form (e.g. Unix port will only support such form, as it doesn't
have "builtin" Pins), what's introduces here is just practical readability
optimization.
"value" kwarg is treated as applying to a Signal (i.e. accounts for possible
inversion).
MONO_xxx is much easier to read if you're not familiar with the code.
MVLSB is deprecated but kept for backwards compatibility, for the time
being.
This patch also updates the associated docs and tests.
This follows the pattern of how all other headers are now included, and
makes it explicit where the header file comes from. This patch also
removes -I options from Makefile's that specify the mp-readline/timeutils/
netutils directories, which are no longer needed.
Allows to get event time for a head item in the queue. The usecase
if waiting for the next event *OR* I/O completion. I/O completion may
happen before event triggers, and then wait should continue for the
remaining event time (or I/O completion may schedule another earlier
event altogether).
The new function has a strongly provisional status - it may be converted
to e.g. peek() function returning all of the event fields, not just time.
GIL behaviour should be handled by the port. And ports probably want to
define sleep_us so that it doesn't release the GIL, to improve timing
accuracy.
This patch refactors the error handling in the lexer, to simplify it (ie
reduce code size).
A long time ago, when the lexer/parser/compiler were first written, the
lexer and parser were designed so they didn't use exceptions (ie nlr) to
report errors but rather returned an error code. Over time that has
gradually changed, the parser in particular has more and more ways of
raising exceptions. Also, the lexer never really handled all errors without
raising, eg there were some memory errors which could raise an exception
(and in these rare cases one would get a fatal nlr-not-handled fault).
This patch accepts the fact that the lexer can raise exceptions in some
cases and allows it to raise exceptions to handle all its errors, which are
for the most part just out-of-memory errors during construction of the
lexer. This makes the lexer a bit simpler, and also the persistent code
stuff is simplified.
What this means for users of the lexer is that calls to it must be wrapped
in a nlr handler. But all uses of the lexer already have such an nlr
handler for the parser (and compiler) so that doesn't put any extra burden
on the callers.
For example, if the current directory is the root dir then this patch
allows one to do uos.listdir('mnt'), where 'mnt' is a valid mount point.
Previous to this patch such a thing would not work, on needed to do
uos.listdir('/mnt') instead.
By adding back monotonically increasing field in addition to time field.
As heapsort is not stable, without this, among entried added and readded
at the same time instant, some might be always selected, and some might
never be selected, leading to scheduling starvation.
Allows to iterate over the following without allocating on the heap:
- tuple
- list
- string, bytes
- bytearray, array
- dict (not dict.keys, dict.values, dict.items)
- set, frozenset
Allows to call the following without heap memory:
- all, any, min, max, sum
TODO: still need to allocate stack memory in bytecode for iter_buf.
If the mounted object doesn't have a "mount" method then assume it's a
block device and try to detect the filesystem. Since we currently only
support FAT filesystems, the behaviour is to just try and create a VfsFat
object automatically, using the given block device.
Each method asserts and deasserts signal respectively. They are equivalent
to .value(1) and .value(0) but conceptually simpler (and may help to avoid
confusion with inverted signals, where "asserted" state means logical 0
output).
SPI needs to be fast, and calling the EVENT_POLL_HOOK every byte makes it
unusable for ports that need to do non-trivial work in the EVENT_POLL_HOOK
call. And individual SPI transfers should be short enough in time that
EVENT_POLL_HOOK doesn't need to be called.
If something like this proves to be needed in practice then we will need
to introduce separate event hook macros, one for "slow" loops (eg
select/poll) and one for "fast" loops (eg software I2C, SPI).
machine.time_pulse_us() is intended to provide very fine timing, including
while working with signal bursts, where each transition is tracked in row.
Throwing and handling an exception may take too much time and "signal loss".
So instead, in case of a timeout, just return negative value. Cases of
timeout while waiting for initial signal stabilization, and during actual
timing, are recognized.
The documentation is updated accordingly, and rewritten somewhat to clarify
the function behavior.
A signal is like a pin, but ca also be inverted (active low). As such, it
abstracts properties of various physical devices, like LEDs, buttons,
relays, buzzers, etc. To instantiate a Signal:
pin = machine.Pin(...)
signal = machine.Signal(pin, inverted=True)
signal has the same .value() and __call__() methods as a pin.
This provides mp_vfs_XXX functions (eg mount, open, listdir) which are
agnostic to the underlying filesystem type, and just require an object with
the relevant filesystem-like methods (eg .mount, .open, .listidr) which can
then be mounted.
These mp_vfs_XXX functions would typically be used by a port to implement
the "uos" module, and mp_vfs_open would be the builtin open function.
This feature is controlled by MICROPY_VFS, disabled by default.
If MICROPY_VFS_FAT is enabled by a port then the port must switch to using
MICROPY_FATFS_OO. Otherwise a port can continue to use the FatFs code
without any changes.
import utimeq, utime
# Max queue size, the queue allocated statically on creation
q = utimeq.utimeq(10)
q.push(utime.ticks_ms(), data1, data2)
res = [0, 0, 0]
# Items in res are filled up with results
q.pop(res)
So long as a port defines relevant mp_hal_pin_xxx functions (and delay) it
can make use of this software SPI class without the need for additional
code.
These are basic drawing primitives. They work in a generic way on all
framebuf formats by calling the underlying setpixel or fill_rect C-level
primitives.
If you have longish operations on the db (such as logging data) it may
be desirable to periodically sync the database to the disk. The added
btree.sync() method merely exposes the berkley __bt_sync function to the
user.
The constants MP_IOCTL_POLL_xxx, which were stmhal-specific, are moved
from stmhal/pybioctl.h (now deleted) to py/stream.h. And they are renamed
to MP_STREAM_POLL_xxx to be consistent with other such constants.
All uses of these constants have been updated.
If the destination of os.rename() exists then it will be overwritten if it
is a file. This is the POSIX behaviour, which is also the CPython
behaviour, and so we follow suit.
See issue #2598 for discussion.
Fill is a very common operation (eg to clear the screen) and it is worth
optimising it, by providing a specialised fill_rect function for each
framebuffer format.
This patch improved the speed of fill by 10 times for a 16-bit display
with 160*128 pixels.
Rename FrameBuffer1 into FrameBuffer and make it handle different bit
depths via a method table that has getpixel and setpixel. Currently
supported formats are MVLSB (monochrome, vertical, LSB) and RGB565.
Also add blit() and fill_rect() methods.
If a port defines MICROPY_READER_POSIX or MICROPY_READER_FATFS then
lexer.c now provides an implementation of mp_lexer_new_from_file using
the mp_reader_new_file function.
Implementations of persistent-code reader are provided for POSIX systems
and systems using FatFS. Macros to use these are MICROPY_READER_POSIX and
MICROPY_READER_FATFS respectively. If an alternative implementation is
needed then a port can define the function mp_reader_new_file.
Its addition was due to an early exploration on how to add CPython-like
stream interface. It's clear that it's not needed and just takes up
bytes in all ports.
As required for further elaboration of uasyncio, like supporting baremetal
systems with wraparound timesources. This is not intended to be public
interface, and likely will be further refactored in the future.
Now the function properly uses ring arithmetic to return signed value
in range (inclusive):
[-MICROPY_PY_UTIME_TICKS_PERIOD/2, MICROPY_PY_UTIME_TICKS_PERIOD/2-1].
That means that function can properly process 2 time values away from
each other within MICROPY_PY_UTIME_TICKS_PERIOD/2 ticks, but away in
both directions. For example, if tick value 'a' predates tick value 'b',
ticks_diff(a, b) will return negative value, and positive value otherwise.
But at positive value of MICROPY_PY_UTIME_TICKS_PERIOD/2-1, the result
of the function will wrap around to negative -MICROPY_PY_UTIME_TICKS_PERIOD/2,
in other words, if a follows b in more than MICROPY_PY_UTIME_TICKS_PERIOD/2 - 1
ticks, the function will "consider" a to actually predate b.
Based on the earlier discussed RFC. Practice showed that the most natural
order for arguments corresponds to mathematical subtraction:
ticks_diff(x, y) <=> x - y
Also, practice showed that in real life, it's hard to order events by time
of occurance a priori, events tend to miss deadlines, etc. and the expected
order breaks. And then there's a need to detect such cases. And ticks_diff
can be used exactly for this purpose, if it returns a signed, instead of
unsigned, value. E.g. if x is scheduled time for event, and y is the current
time, then if ticks_diff(x, y) < 0 then event has missed a deadline (and e.g.
needs to executed ASAP or skipped). Returning in this case a large unsigned
number (like ticks_diff behaved previously) doesn't make sense, and such
"large unsigned number" can't be reliably detected per our definition of
ticks_* function (we don't expose to user level maximum value, it can be
anything, relatively small or relatively large).
