An early version of an introduction to the new device manager. Will be expanded
more over the following days, and published on the website. Comments welcome! git-svn-id: file:///srv/svn/repos/haiku/haiku/trunk@25760 a95241bf-73f2-0310-859d-f6bbb57e9c96
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Axel Dörfler
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<html>
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<body bgcolor=white>
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<h1>Introduction to Haiku's Device Driver Architecture</h1>
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<p>This document tries to give you a short introduction into the new device
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manager, and how to write drivers for it. Haiku still supports the legacy
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device driver architecture introduced with BeOS.</p>
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<p>The new device driver architecture of Haiku is still a moving target,
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although most of its details are already specificed.</p>
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<h3>1. The Basics</h3>
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<p>The device manager functionality builds upon <i>device_node</i> objects.
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Every driver in the system publishes one or more of such nodes, building a
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tree of device nodes. This tree is in theory a dynamic representation of the
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current hardware devices in the system, but in practice will also contain
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implementation specific details; since every node comes with an API specific
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to that node, you'll find device nodes that only come with a number of support
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functions for a certain class of drivers.</p>
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<p>Structurally, a <i>device_node</i> is a set of a module, attributes,
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and resources, as well as a parent and children. At a minimum, a node must
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have a module, all other components are optional.</p>
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TODO: picture of the device node tree
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<p>When the system starts, there is only a root node registered. Only primary
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hardware busses register with the root node, such as PCI, and ISA on x86.
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Since the PCI bus is an intelligent bus, it knows what hardware is installed,
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and registers a child node for each device on the bus.</p>
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<p>Every driver can also publish a device in <i>/dev</i> for communication with
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userland applications. All drivers and devices are kernel modules.</p>
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<h3>2. Exploring the Device Tree</h3>
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<p>So how does it all work? When building the initial device tree, the system only
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explores a minimum of device drivers only, resulting in a tree that basically
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only shows the hardware found in the computer.</p>
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<p>Now, if the system requires disk access, it will scan the device file system
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for a driver that provides such functionality, in this case, it will look for
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drivers under "/dev/disk/". The device manager has a set of built-in rules for
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how to translate a device path into a device node, and vice versa: every node
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representing a device of an intelligent bus (such as PCI) will also contain
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device type information following the PCI definitions. In this case, the "disk"
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sub-path will translate into the <i>PCI_mass_storage</i> type, and hence, the
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device manager will then completely explore all device nodes of that type.</p>
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<p>It will also use that path information to only ask drivers that actually
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are in a matching module directory. In the above example of a disk driver, this
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would be either in "busses/scsi", "busses/ide", "drivers/disk", ...</p>
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TODO: untyped/generic busses are not yet supported!
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<h3>3. Writing a Driver</h3>
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<p>The device manager assumes the following API from a driver module:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><b>supports_device()</b><br>
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Determines wether or not the driver supports a given parent device node,
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that is the hardware device it represents (if any), and the API the node
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exports.</li>
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<li><b>register_device()</b><br>
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The driver should register its device node here. The parent driver is
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always initialized at this point. When registering the node, the driver
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can also attach certain I/O resources (like I/O ports, or memory ranges)
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to the node -- the device manager will make sure that only one node can
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claim these resources.</li>
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<li><b>init_driver()</b><br>
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Any initialization necessary to get the driver going. For most drivers,
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this will be reduced to the creation of a private data structure that is
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going to be used for all of the following functions.</li>
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<li><b>uninit_driver()</b><br>
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Uninitializes resources acquired by <b>init_driver()</b>.</li>
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<li><b>register_child_devices()</b><br>
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If the driver wants to register any child device nodes or to publish
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any devices, it should do so here. This function is called only during
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the initial registration process of the device node.</li>
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<li><b>rescan_child_devices()</b><br>
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Is called whenever a manual rescan is triggered.</li>
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<li><b>device_removed()</b></br>
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Is called when the device node is about to be unregistered when its
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device is gone, for example when a USB device is unplugged.</li>
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<li><b>suspend()</b><br>
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Enters different sleep modes.</li>
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<li><b>resume()</b><br>
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Resumes a device from a previous sleep mode.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>To ensure that a module exports this API, it <b>must</b> end its module name
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with "driver_v1" to denote the version of the API it supports. Note that
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<b>suspend()</b> and <b>resume()</b> are currently never called, as Haiku has
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no power management implemented yet.</p>
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<p>If your driver can give the device it is attached to a nice name that can be
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presented to the user, it should add the <b>B_DEVICE_PRETTY_NAME</b> attribute
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to the device node.
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<p>The <b>B_DEVICE_UNIQUE_ID</b> should be used in case the device has a unique
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ID that can be used to identify it, and also differentiate it from other devices
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of the same model and vendor. This information will be added to the file system
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attributes of all devices published by your driver, so that user applications
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can identify, say, a USB printer no matter what USB slot it is attached to, and
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assign it additional data, like paper configuration, or recognize it as the
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default printer.</p>
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<p>If your driver implements an API that is used by a support or bus module, you
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will usually use the <b>B_DEVICE_FIXED_CHILD</b> attribute to specify exactly
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which child device node you will be talking to. If you support several child
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nodes, you may want to have a closer look at the section explaining
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<a href="#bus_driver">how to write a bus driver</a>.</p>
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<h3>4. Publishing a Device</h3>
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To publish a device entry in the device file system under <i>/dev</i>, all your
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driver has to do is to call the
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<pre>
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publish_device(device_node *node, const char *path,
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const char *deviceModuleName);
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</pre>
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function the device manager module exports. The <i>path</i> is the path
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component that follows "/dev", for example "net/ipro1000/0". The
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<i>deviceModuleName</i> is the module exporting the device functionality.
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It should end with "device_v1" to show the device manager which protocol it
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supports. If the device node your device belongs to is removed, your device
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is removed automatically with it. On the other hand, you are allowed to
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unpublish the device at any point using the <b>unpublish_device()</b> function
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the device manager delivers for this.</p>
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<p>A device module must export the following API:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><b>init_device()</b><br>
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This is called when the open() is called on this device for the first
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time. You may want to create a private data structure that is passed on
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to all subsequent calls of the <b>open()</b> function that your device
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exports.</li>
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<li><b>uninit_device()</b><br>
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Is called when the last file descriptor to the device had been closed.</li>
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<li><b>device_removed()</b><br>
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When the device node your device belongs to is going to be removed,
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you're notified about this in this function.</li>
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<li><b>open()</b><br>
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Called whenever your device is opened.</li>
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<li><b>close()</b><br>
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</li>
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<li><b>free()</b><br>
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Free the private data structure you allocated in <b>open()</b>.</li>
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<li><b>read()</b><br>
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</li>
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<li><b>write()</b><br>
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</li>
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<li><b>io()</b><br>
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This is a replacement for the <b>read()</b>, and <b>write()</b> calls,
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and allows, among other things, for asynchronous I/O. This functionality
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has not yet been implemented, though (see below).</li>
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<li><b>control()</b><br>
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</li>
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<li><b>select()</b><br>
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</li>
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<li><b>deselect()</b><br>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h3>5. <a name="bus_driver">Writing a Bus Driver</a></h3>
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<p>A bus driver is a driver that represents a bus where one or more arbitrary
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devices can be attached to.</p>
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<p>There are two basic types of busses: intelligent busses like PCI or USB that
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know a lot about the devices attached to it, like a generic device type, as
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well as device and vendor ID information, and simple untyped/generic busses that
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either have not all the information (like device type) or don't even know what
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and if any devices are attached. The device manager has been written in such a
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way that device exploration makes use of additional information the bus can
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provide in order to find a responsible device driver faster, and with less
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overhead.</p>
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<h4>5.1. Writing an Intelligent Bus Driver</h4>
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<p>If your bus knows what type of device is attached to, and also has vendor and
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device ID information about that device, it is considered to be an intelligent
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bus. The bus driver is supposed to have one parent node representing the bus,
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and to create a child node for each device attached to the bus.</p>
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<p>The additional information you have about the devices are attached to the
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device node in the following attributes:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><b>B_DEVICE_VENDOR_ID</b><br>
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The vendor ID - this ID has only to be valid in the namespace of your
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bus.</li>
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<li><b>B_DEVICE_ID</b><br>
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The device ID.</li>
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<li><b>B_DEVICE_TYPE</b><br>
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The device type as defined by the PCI class base information.</li>
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<li><b>B_DEVICE_SUB_TYPE</b><br>
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The device sub type as defined by the PCI sub class information.</li>
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<li><b>B_DEVICE_INTERFACE</b><br>
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The device interface type as defined by the PCI class API information.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>You can use the <b>B_DEVICE_FLAGS</b> attribute to define how the device
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manager finds the children of the devices you exported. For this kind of bus
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drivers, you will usually only want to specify <b>B_FIND_CHILD_ON_DEMAND</b>
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here, which causes the driver only to be searched when the system asks for it.
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</p>
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<h4>5.2. Writing a Simple Bus Driver</h4>
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TODO: support for these drivers is still missing!
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<h3>6. Open Issues</h3>
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While most of the new device manager is fledged out, there are some areas that
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could use improvements or are problematic under certain requirements. Also, some
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parts just haven't been written yet.
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<h4>6.1. generic/simple busses</h4>
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<h4>6.2. Unpublishing</h4>
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<h4>6.3. listdev functionality</h4>
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The "listdev" command has been removed from the image, and it is currently not
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functional anymore.
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<h4>6.4. Versioning</h4>
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<p>The way the device manager works, it makes versioning of modules (which are
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supposed to be one of the strong points of the module system) much harder or
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even impossible. While the device manager could introduce a new API and could
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translate between a "driver_v1", and a "driver_v2" API on the fly, it's not
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yet possible for a PCI sub module to do the same thing.</p>
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<p><b>Proposed Solution:</b> Add attribute <b>B_DEVICE_ALTERNATE_VERSION</b>
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that specifies alternate versions of the module API this device node supports.
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We would then need a <b>request_version()</b> or <b>set_version()</b> function
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(to be called from <b>supports_device()</b>) that allows to specify the version
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of the parent node this device node wants to talk to.</p>
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<h4>6.5. Unregistering Nodes</h4>
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</body>
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</html>
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