Linux Audio

Check our new training course

Linux kernel drivers training

Mar 31-Apr 9, 2025, special US time zones
Register
Loading...
Note: File does not exist in v6.13.7.
  1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  2<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
  3	"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" []>
  4
  5<book id="LinuxKernelAPI">
  6 <bookinfo>
  7  <title>The Linux Kernel API</title>
  8  
  9  <legalnotice>
 10   <para>
 11     This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
 12     it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
 13     License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
 14     version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
 15     version.
 16   </para>
 17      
 18   <para>
 19     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
 20     useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
 21     warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 22     See the GNU General Public License for more details.
 23   </para>
 24      
 25   <para>
 26     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
 27     License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
 28     Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
 29     MA 02111-1307 USA
 30   </para>
 31      
 32   <para>
 33     For more details see the file COPYING in the source
 34     distribution of Linux.
 35   </para>
 36  </legalnotice>
 37 </bookinfo>
 38
 39<toc></toc>
 40
 41  <chapter id="adt">
 42     <title>Data Types</title>
 43     <sect1><title>Doubly Linked Lists</title>
 44!Iinclude/linux/list.h
 45     </sect1>
 46  </chapter>
 47
 48  <chapter id="libc">
 49     <title>Basic C Library Functions</title>
 50
 51     <para>
 52       When writing drivers, you cannot in general use routines which are
 53       from the C Library.  Some of the functions have been found generally
 54       useful and they are listed below.  The behaviour of these functions
 55       may vary slightly from those defined by ANSI, and these deviations
 56       are noted in the text.
 57     </para>
 58
 59     <sect1><title>String Conversions</title>
 60!Elib/vsprintf.c
 61     </sect1>
 62     <sect1><title>String Manipulation</title>
 63<!-- All functions are exported at now
 64X!Ilib/string.c
 65 -->
 66!Elib/string.c
 67     </sect1>
 68     <sect1><title>Bit Operations</title>
 69!Iarch/x86/include/asm/bitops.h
 70     </sect1>
 71  </chapter>
 72
 73  <chapter id="kernel-lib">
 74     <title>Basic Kernel Library Functions</title>
 75
 76     <para>
 77       The Linux kernel provides more basic utility functions.
 78     </para>
 79
 80     <sect1><title>Bitmap Operations</title>
 81!Elib/bitmap.c
 82!Ilib/bitmap.c
 83     </sect1>
 84
 85     <sect1><title>Command-line Parsing</title>
 86!Elib/cmdline.c
 87     </sect1>
 88
 89     <sect1 id="crc"><title>CRC Functions</title>
 90!Elib/crc7.c
 91!Elib/crc16.c
 92!Elib/crc-itu-t.c
 93!Elib/crc32.c
 94!Elib/crc-ccitt.c
 95     </sect1>
 96
 97     <sect1 id="idr"><title>idr/ida Functions</title>
 98!Pinclude/linux/idr.h idr sync
 99!Plib/idr.c IDA description
100!Elib/idr.c
101     </sect1>
102  </chapter>
103
104  <chapter id="mm">
105     <title>Memory Management in Linux</title>
106     <sect1><title>The Slab Cache</title>
107!Iinclude/linux/slab.h
108!Emm/slab.c
109     </sect1>
110     <sect1><title>User Space Memory Access</title>
111!Iarch/x86/include/asm/uaccess_32.h
112!Earch/x86/lib/usercopy_32.c
113     </sect1>
114     <sect1><title>More Memory Management Functions</title>
115!Emm/readahead.c
116!Emm/filemap.c
117!Emm/memory.c
118!Emm/vmalloc.c
119!Imm/page_alloc.c
120!Emm/mempool.c
121!Emm/dmapool.c
122!Emm/page-writeback.c
123!Emm/truncate.c
124     </sect1>
125  </chapter>
126
127
128  <chapter id="ipc">
129     <title>Kernel IPC facilities</title>
130
131     <sect1><title>IPC utilities</title>
132!Iipc/util.c
133     </sect1>
134  </chapter>
135
136  <chapter id="kfifo">
137     <title>FIFO Buffer</title>
138     <sect1><title>kfifo interface</title>
139!Iinclude/linux/kfifo.h
140     </sect1>
141  </chapter>
142
143  <chapter id="relayfs">
144     <title>relay interface support</title>
145
146     <para>
147	Relay interface support
148	is designed to provide an efficient mechanism for tools and
149	facilities to relay large amounts of data from kernel space to
150	user space.
151     </para>
152
153     <sect1><title>relay interface</title>
154!Ekernel/relay.c
155!Ikernel/relay.c
156     </sect1>
157  </chapter>
158
159  <chapter id="modload">
160     <title>Module Support</title>
161     <sect1><title>Module Loading</title>
162!Ekernel/kmod.c
163     </sect1>
164     <sect1><title>Inter Module support</title>
165        <para>
166           Refer to the file kernel/module.c for more information.
167        </para>
168<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
169X!Ekernel/module.c
170-->
171     </sect1>
172  </chapter>
173
174  <chapter id="hardware">
175     <title>Hardware Interfaces</title>
176     <sect1><title>Interrupt Handling</title>
177!Ekernel/irq/manage.c
178     </sect1>
179
180     <sect1><title>DMA Channels</title>
181!Ekernel/dma.c
182     </sect1>
183
184     <sect1><title>Resources Management</title>
185!Ikernel/resource.c
186!Ekernel/resource.c
187     </sect1>
188
189     <sect1><title>MTRR Handling</title>
190!Earch/x86/kernel/cpu/mtrr/main.c
191     </sect1>
192
193     <sect1><title>PCI Support Library</title>
194!Edrivers/pci/pci.c
195!Edrivers/pci/pci-driver.c
196!Edrivers/pci/remove.c
197!Edrivers/pci/search.c
198!Edrivers/pci/msi.c
199!Edrivers/pci/bus.c
200!Edrivers/pci/access.c
201!Edrivers/pci/irq.c
202!Edrivers/pci/htirq.c
203<!-- FIXME: Removed for now since no structured comments in source
204X!Edrivers/pci/hotplug.c
205-->
206!Edrivers/pci/probe.c
207!Edrivers/pci/slot.c
208!Edrivers/pci/rom.c
209!Edrivers/pci/iov.c
210!Idrivers/pci/pci-sysfs.c
211     </sect1>
212     <sect1><title>PCI Hotplug Support Library</title>
213!Edrivers/pci/hotplug/pci_hotplug_core.c
214     </sect1>
215  </chapter>
216
217  <chapter id="firmware">
218     <title>Firmware Interfaces</title>
219     <sect1><title>DMI Interfaces</title>
220!Edrivers/firmware/dmi_scan.c
221     </sect1>
222     <sect1><title>EDD Interfaces</title>
223!Idrivers/firmware/edd.c
224     </sect1>
225  </chapter>
226
227  <chapter id="security">
228     <title>Security Framework</title>
229!Isecurity/security.c
230!Esecurity/inode.c
231  </chapter>
232
233  <chapter id="audit">
234     <title>Audit Interfaces</title>
235!Ekernel/audit.c
236!Ikernel/auditsc.c
237!Ikernel/auditfilter.c
238  </chapter>
239
240  <chapter id="accounting">
241     <title>Accounting Framework</title>
242!Ikernel/acct.c
243  </chapter>
244
245  <chapter id="blkdev">
246     <title>Block Devices</title>
247!Eblock/blk-core.c
248!Iblock/blk-core.c
249!Eblock/blk-map.c
250!Iblock/blk-sysfs.c
251!Eblock/blk-settings.c
252!Eblock/blk-exec.c
253!Eblock/blk-flush.c
254!Eblock/blk-lib.c
255!Eblock/blk-tag.c
256!Iblock/blk-tag.c
257!Eblock/blk-integrity.c
258!Ikernel/trace/blktrace.c
259!Iblock/genhd.c
260!Eblock/genhd.c
261  </chapter>
262
263  <chapter id="chrdev">
264	<title>Char devices</title>
265!Efs/char_dev.c
266  </chapter>
267
268  <chapter id="miscdev">
269     <title>Miscellaneous Devices</title>
270!Edrivers/char/misc.c
271  </chapter>
272
273  <chapter id="clk">
274     <title>Clock Framework</title>
275
276     <para>
277	The clock framework defines programming interfaces to support
278	software management of the system clock tree.
279	This framework is widely used with System-On-Chip (SOC) platforms
280	to support power management and various devices which may need
281	custom clock rates.
282	Note that these "clocks" don't relate to timekeeping or real
283	time clocks (RTCs), each of which have separate frameworks.
284	These <structname>struct clk</structname> instances may be used
285	to manage for example a 96 MHz signal that is used to shift bits
286	into and out of peripherals or busses, or otherwise trigger
287	synchronous state machine transitions in system hardware.
288     </para>
289
290     <para>
291	Power management is supported by explicit software clock gating:
292	unused clocks are disabled, so the system doesn't waste power
293	changing the state of transistors that aren't in active use.
294	On some systems this may be backed by hardware clock gating,
295	where clocks are gated without being disabled in software.
296	Sections of chips that are powered but not clocked may be able
297	to retain their last state.
298	This low power state is often called a <emphasis>retention
299	mode</emphasis>.
300	This mode still incurs leakage currents, especially with finer
301	circuit geometries, but for CMOS circuits power is mostly used
302	by clocked state changes.
303     </para>
304
305     <para>
306	Power-aware drivers only enable their clocks when the device
307	they manage is in active use.  Also, system sleep states often
308	differ according to which clock domains are active:  while a
309	"standby" state may allow wakeup from several active domains, a
310	"mem" (suspend-to-RAM) state may require a more wholesale shutdown
311	of clocks derived from higher speed PLLs and oscillators, limiting
312	the number of possible wakeup event sources.  A driver's suspend
313	method may need to be aware of system-specific clock constraints
314	on the target sleep state.
315     </para>
316
317     <para>
318        Some platforms support programmable clock generators.  These
319	can be used by external chips of various kinds, such as other
320	CPUs, multimedia codecs, and devices with strict requirements
321	for interface clocking.
322     </para>
323
324!Iinclude/linux/clk.h
325  </chapter>
326
327</book>