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authorIngo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>2009-06-17 12:52:15 +0200
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>2009-06-17 12:56:49 +0200
commiteadb8a091b27a840de7450f84ecff5ef13476424 (patch)
tree58c3782d40def63baa8167f3d31e3048cb4c7660 /Documentation/driver-model/device.txt
parent73874005cd8800440be4299bd095387fff4b90ac (diff)
parent65795efbd380a832ae508b04dba8f8e53f0b84d9 (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.txt32
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");