From 849369d6c66d3054688672f97d31fceb8e8230fb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: root <root@artemis.panaceas.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2015 04:40:36 +0000
Subject: initial_commit

---
 Documentation/driver-model/device.txt | 107 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 107 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/driver-model/device.txt

(limited to 'Documentation/driver-model/device.txt')

diff --git a/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt b/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b2ff4268
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,107 @@
+
+The Basic Device Structure
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+See the kerneldoc for the struct device.
+
+
+Programming Interface
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+The bus driver that discovers the device uses this to register the
+device with the core:
+
+int device_register(struct device * dev);
+
+The bus should initialize the following fields:
+
+    - parent
+    - name
+    - bus_id
+    - bus
+
+A device is removed from the core when its reference count goes to
+0. The reference count can be adjusted using:
+
+struct device * get_device(struct device * dev);
+void put_device(struct device * dev);
+
+get_device() will return a pointer to the struct device passed to it
+if the reference is not already 0 (if it's in the process of being
+removed already).
+
+A driver can access the lock in the device structure using: 
+
+void lock_device(struct device * dev);
+void unlock_device(struct device * dev);
+
+
+Attributes
+~~~~~~~~~~
+struct device_attribute {
+	struct attribute	attr;
+	ssize_t (*show)(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *attr,
+			char *buf);
+	ssize_t (*store)(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *attr,
+			 const char *buf, size_t count);
+};
+
+Attributes of devices can be exported via drivers using a simple
+procfs-like interface. 
+
+Please see Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt for more information
+on how sysfs works.
+
+Attributes are declared using a macro called DEVICE_ATTR:
+
+#define DEVICE_ATTR(name,mode,show,store)
+
+Example:
+
+DEVICE_ATTR(power,0644,show_power,store_power);
+
+This declares a structure of type struct device_attribute named
+'dev_attr_power'. This can then be added and removed to the device's
+directory using:
+
+int device_create_file(struct device *device, struct device_attribute * entry);
+void device_remove_file(struct device * dev, struct device_attribute * attr);
+
+Example:
+
+device_create_file(dev,&dev_attr_power);
+device_remove_file(dev,&dev_attr_power);
+
+The file name will be 'power' with a mode of 0644 (-rw-r--r--).
+
+Word of warning:  While the kernel allows device_create_file() and
+device_remove_file() to be called on a device at any time, userspace has
+strict expectations on when attributes get created.  When a new device is
+registered in the kernel, a uevent is generated to notify userspace (like
+udev) that a new device is available.  If attributes are added after the
+device is registered, then userspace won't get notified and userspace will
+not know about the new attributes.
+
+This is important for device driver that need to publish additional
+attributes for a device at driver probe time.  If the device driver simply
+calls device_create_file() on the device structure passed to it, then
+userspace will never be notified of the new attributes.  Instead, it should
+probably use class_create() and class->dev_attrs to set up a list of
+desired attributes in the modules_init function, and then in the .probe()
+hook, and then use device_create() to create a new device as a child
+of the probed device.  The new device will generate a new uevent and
+properly advertise the new attributes to userspace.
+
+For example, if a driver wanted to add the following attributes:
+struct device_attribute mydriver_attribs[] = {
+	__ATTR(port_count, 0444, port_count_show),
+	__ATTR(serial_number, 0444, serial_number_show),
+	NULL
+};
+
+Then in the module init function is would do:
+	mydriver_class = class_create(THIS_MODULE, "my_attrs");
+	mydriver_class.dev_attr = mydriver_attribs;
+
+And assuming 'dev' is the struct device passed into the probe hook, the driver
+probe function would do something like:
+	create_device(&mydriver_class, dev, chrdev, &private_data, "my_name");
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