1========================== 2The Basic Device Structure 3========================== 4 5See the kerneldoc for the struct device. 6 7 8Programming Interface 9~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 10The bus driver that discovers the device uses this to register the 11device with the core:: 12 13 int device_register(struct device * dev); 14 15The bus should initialize the following fields: 16 17 - parent 18 - name 19 - bus_id 20 - bus 21 22A device is removed from the core when its reference count goes to 230. The reference count can be adjusted using:: 24 25 struct device * get_device(struct device * dev); 26 void put_device(struct device * dev); 27 28get_device() will return a pointer to the struct device passed to it 29if the reference is not already 0 (if it's in the process of being 30removed already). 31 32A driver can access the lock in the device structure using:: 33 34 void lock_device(struct device * dev); 35 void unlock_device(struct device * dev); 36 37 38Attributes 39~~~~~~~~~~ 40 41:: 42 43 struct device_attribute { 44 struct attribute attr; 45 ssize_t (*show)(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *attr, 46 char *buf); 47 ssize_t (*store)(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *attr, 48 const char *buf, size_t count); 49 }; 50 51Attributes of devices can be exported by a device driver through sysfs. 52 53Please see Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt for more information 54on how sysfs works. 55 56As explained in Documentation/kobject.txt, device attributes must be 57created before the KOBJ_ADD uevent is generated. The only way to realize 58that is by defining an attribute group. 59 60Attributes are declared using a macro called DEVICE_ATTR:: 61 62 #define DEVICE_ATTR(name,mode,show,store) 63 64Example::: 65 66 static DEVICE_ATTR(type, 0444, show_type, NULL); 67 static DEVICE_ATTR(power, 0644, show_power, store_power); 68 69This declares two structures of type struct device_attribute with respective 70names 'dev_attr_type' and 'dev_attr_power'. These two attributes can be 71organized as follows into a group:: 72 73 static struct attribute *dev_attrs[] = { 74 &dev_attr_type.attr, 75 &dev_attr_power.attr, 76 NULL, 77 }; 78 79 static struct attribute_group dev_attr_group = { 80 .attrs = dev_attrs, 81 }; 82 83 static const struct attribute_group *dev_attr_groups[] = { 84 &dev_attr_group, 85 NULL, 86 }; 87 88This array of groups can then be associated with a device by setting the 89group pointer in struct device before device_register() is invoked:: 90 91 dev->groups = dev_attr_groups; 92 device_register(dev); 93 94The device_register() function will use the 'groups' pointer to create the 95device attributes and the device_unregister() function will use this pointer 96to remove the device attributes. 97 98Word of warning: While the kernel allows device_create_file() and 99device_remove_file() to be called on a device at any time, userspace has 100strict expectations on when attributes get created. When a new device is 101registered in the kernel, a uevent is generated to notify userspace (like 102udev) that a new device is available. If attributes are added after the 103device is registered, then userspace won't get notified and userspace will 104not know about the new attributes. 105 106This is important for device driver that need to publish additional 107attributes for a device at driver probe time. If the device driver simply 108calls device_create_file() on the device structure passed to it, then 109userspace will never be notified of the new attributes. 110