diff options
author | Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> | 2009-06-17 12:52:15 +0200 |
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committer | Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> | 2009-06-17 12:56:49 +0200 |
commit | eadb8a091b27a840de7450f84ecff5ef13476424 (patch) | |
tree | 58c3782d40def63baa8167f3d31e3048cb4c7660 /Documentation/driver-model/device.txt | |
parent | 73874005cd8800440be4299bd095387fff4b90ac (diff) | |
parent | 65795efbd380a832ae508b04dba8f8e53f0b84d9 (diff) |
Merge branch 'linus' into tracing/hw-breakpoints
Conflicts:
arch/x86/Kconfig
arch/x86/kernel/traps.c
arch/x86/power/cpu.c
arch/x86/power/cpu_32.c
kernel/Makefile
Semantic conflict:
arch/x86/kernel/hw_breakpoint.c
Merge reason: Resolve the conflicts, move from put_cpu_no_sched() to
put_cpu() in arch/x86/kernel/hw_breakpoint.c.
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/driver-model/device.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/driver-model/device.txt | 32 |
1 files changed, 32 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt b/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt index a7cbfff40d0..a124f3126b0 100644 --- a/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt +++ b/Documentation/driver-model/device.txt @@ -162,3 +162,35 @@ 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"); |