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+
+Device Drivers
+
+See the kerneldoc for the struct device_driver.
+
+
+Allocation
+~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Device drivers are statically allocated structures. Though there may
+be multiple devices in a system that a driver supports, struct
+device_driver represents the driver as a whole (not a particular
+device instance).
+
+Initialization
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The driver must initialize at least the name and bus fields. It should
+also initialize the devclass field (when it arrives), so it may obtain
+the proper linkage internally. It should also initialize as many of
+the callbacks as possible, though each is optional.
+
+Declaration
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+As stated above, struct device_driver objects are statically
+allocated. Below is an example declaration of the eepro100
+driver. This declaration is hypothetical only; it relies on the driver
+being converted completely to the new model. 
+
+static struct device_driver eepro100_driver = {
+       .name		= "eepro100",
+       .bus		= &pci_bus_type,
+       
+       .probe		= eepro100_probe,
+       .remove		= eepro100_remove,
+       .suspend		= eepro100_suspend,
+       .resume		= eepro100_resume,
+};
+
+Most drivers will not be able to be converted completely to the new
+model because the bus they belong to has a bus-specific structure with
+bus-specific fields that cannot be generalized. 
+
+The most common example of this are device ID structures. A driver
+typically defines an array of device IDs that it supports. The format
+of these structures and the semantics for comparing device IDs are
+completely bus-specific. Defining them as bus-specific entities would
+sacrifice type-safety, so we keep bus-specific structures around. 
+
+Bus-specific drivers should include a generic struct device_driver in
+the definition of the bus-specific driver. Like this:
+
+struct pci_driver {
+       const struct pci_device_id *id_table;
+       struct device_driver	  driver;
+};
+
+A definition that included bus-specific fields would look like
+(using the eepro100 driver again):
+
+static struct pci_driver eepro100_driver = {
+       .id_table       = eepro100_pci_tbl,
+       .driver	       = {
+		.name		= "eepro100",
+		.bus		= &pci_bus_type,
+		.probe		= eepro100_probe,
+		.remove		= eepro100_remove,
+		.suspend	= eepro100_suspend,
+		.resume		= eepro100_resume,
+       },
+};
+
+Some may find the syntax of embedded struct initialization awkward or
+even a bit ugly. So far, it's the best way we've found to do what we want...
+
+Registration
+~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+int driver_register(struct device_driver * drv);
+
+The driver registers the structure on startup. For drivers that have
+no bus-specific fields (i.e. don't have a bus-specific driver
+structure), they would use driver_register and pass a pointer to their
+struct device_driver object. 
+
+Most drivers, however, will have a bus-specific structure and will
+need to register with the bus using something like pci_driver_register.
+
+It is important that drivers register their driver structure as early as
+possible. Registration with the core initializes several fields in the
+struct device_driver object, including the reference count and the
+lock. These fields are assumed to be valid at all times and may be
+used by the device model core or the bus driver.
+
+
+Transition Bus Drivers
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+By defining wrapper functions, the transition to the new model can be
+made easier. Drivers can ignore the generic structure altogether and
+let the bus wrapper fill in the fields. For the callbacks, the bus can
+define generic callbacks that forward the call to the bus-specific
+callbacks of the drivers. 
+
+This solution is intended to be only temporary. In order to get class
+information in the driver, the drivers must be modified anyway. Since
+converting drivers to the new model should reduce some infrastructural
+complexity and code size, it is recommended that they are converted as
+class information is added.
+
+Access
+~~~~~~
+
+Once the object has been registered, it may access the common fields of
+the object, like the lock and the list of devices. 
+
+int driver_for_each_dev(struct device_driver * drv, void * data, 
+		        int (*callback)(struct device * dev, void * data));
+
+The devices field is a list of all the devices that have been bound to
+the driver. The LDM core provides a helper function to operate on all
+the devices a driver controls. This helper locks the driver on each
+node access, and does proper reference counting on each device as it
+accesses it. 
+
+
+sysfs
+~~~~~
+
+When a driver is registered, a sysfs directory is created in its
+bus's directory. In this directory, the driver can export an interface
+to userspace to control operation of the driver on a global basis;
+e.g. toggling debugging output in the driver.
+
+A future feature of this directory will be a 'devices' directory. This
+directory will contain symlinks to the directories of devices it
+supports.
+
+
+
+Callbacks
+~~~~~~~~~
+
+	int	(*probe)	(struct device * dev);
+
+The probe() entry is called in task context, with the bus's rwsem locked
+and the driver partially bound to the device.  Drivers commonly use
+container_of() to convert "dev" to a bus-specific type, both in probe()
+and other routines.  That type often provides device resource data, such
+as pci_dev.resource[] or platform_device.resources, which is used in
+addition to dev->platform_data to initialize the driver.
+
+This callback holds the driver-specific logic to bind the driver to a
+given device.  That includes verifying that the device is present, that
+it's a version the driver can handle, that driver data structures can
+be allocated and initialized, and that any hardware can be initialized.
+Drivers often store a pointer to their state with dev_set_drvdata().
+When the driver has successfully bound itself to that device, then probe()
+returns zero and the driver model code will finish its part of binding
+the driver to that device.
+
+A driver's probe() may return a negative errno value to indicate that
+the driver did not bind to this device, in which case it should have
+released all resources it allocated.
+
+	int 	(*remove)	(struct device * dev);
+
+remove is called to unbind a driver from a device. This may be
+called if a device is physically removed from the system, if the
+driver module is being unloaded, during a reboot sequence, or
+in other cases.
+
+It is up to the driver to determine if the device is present or
+not. It should free any resources allocated specifically for the
+device; i.e. anything in the device's driver_data field. 
+
+If the device is still present, it should quiesce the device and place
+it into a supported low-power state.
+
+	int	(*suspend)	(struct device * dev, pm_message_t state);
+
+suspend is called to put the device in a low power state.
+
+	int	(*resume)	(struct device * dev);
+
+Resume is used to bring a device back from a low power state.
+
+
+Attributes
+~~~~~~~~~~
+struct driver_attribute {
+        struct attribute        attr;
+        ssize_t (*show)(struct device_driver *driver, char *buf);
+        ssize_t (*store)(struct device_driver *, const char * buf, size_t count);
+};
+
+Device drivers can export attributes via their sysfs directories. 
+Drivers can declare attributes using a DRIVER_ATTR macro that works
+identically to the DEVICE_ATTR macro. 
+
+Example:
+
+DRIVER_ATTR(debug,0644,show_debug,store_debug);
+
+This is equivalent to declaring:
+
+struct driver_attribute driver_attr_debug;
+
+This can then be used to add and remove the attribute from the
+driver's directory using:
+
+int driver_create_file(struct device_driver *, const struct driver_attribute *);
+void driver_remove_file(struct device_driver *, const struct driver_attribute *);