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author | Corey Richardson <corey@octayn.net> | 2015-07-05 07:33:50 -0400 |
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committer | Paul Osborne <Paul.Osborne@digi.com> | 2015-08-12 19:29:21 -0500 |
commit | aabe0828a04002a19134827cba64d9efcda4fc35 (patch) | |
tree | 685f0d97416fc954e7841edfa5c8d34a16b5a040 /src | |
parent | 23332d6e8d7b00b0134980b16af1da8f2376590c (diff) | |
download | nix-aabe0828a04002a19134827cba64d9efcda4fc35.zip |
Update docs
Diffstat (limited to 'src')
-rw-r--r-- | src/sys/ioctl/mod.rs | 64 |
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 31 deletions
diff --git a/src/sys/ioctl/mod.rs b/src/sys/ioctl/mod.rs index 8839e934..31e8f322 100644 --- a/src/sys/ioctl/mod.rs +++ b/src/sys/ioctl/mod.rs @@ -1,12 +1,18 @@ //! Provide helpers for making ioctl system calls //! -//! # Overview of IOCTLs +//! Currently supports Linux on all architectures. Other platforms welcome! //! -//! The `ioctl` system call is a widely support system -//! call on *nix systems providing access to functions -//! and data that do not fit nicely into the standard -//! read and write operations on a file itself. It is -//! common to see ioctls used for the following purposes: +//! This library is pretty low-level and messy. `ioctl` is not fun. +//! +//! What is an `ioctl`? +//! =================== +//! +//! The `ioctl` syscall is the grab-bag syscall on POSIX systems. Don't want +//! to add a new syscall? Make it an `ioctl`! `ioctl` refers to both the syscall, +//! and the commands that can be send with it. `ioctl` stands for "IO control", +//! and the commands are always sent to a file descriptor. +//! +//! It is common to see `ioctl`s used for the following purposes: //! //! * Provide read/write access to out-of-band data related //! to a device such as configuration (for instance, setting @@ -18,40 +24,36 @@ //! to the CDROM device. //! * Do whatever else the device driver creator thought made most sense. //! -//! Ioctls are synchronous system calls and are similar to read and +//! `ioctl`s are synchronous system calls and are similar to read and //! write calls in that regard. //! -//! The prototype for the ioctl system call in libc is as follows: +//! What does this module support? +//! =============================== +//! +//! This library provides the `ioctl!` macro, for binding `ioctl`s. It also tries +//! to bind every `ioctl` supported by the system with said macro, but +//! some `ioctl`s requires some amount of manual work (usually by +//! providing `struct` declaration) that this library does not support yet. //! -//! ```c -//! int ioctl(int fd, unsigned long request, ...); -//! ``` +//! Additionally, in `etc`, there are scripts for scraping system headers for +//! `ioctl` definitions, and generating calls to `ioctl!` corresponding to them. //! -//! Typically, an ioctl takes 3 parameters as arguments: +//! How do I get the magic numbers? +//! =============================== //! -//! 1. An open file descriptor, `fd`. -//! 2. An device-dependennt request code or operation. This request -//! code is referred to as `op` in this module. -//! 3. Either a pointer to a location in memory or an integer. This -//! number of pointer may either be used by the kernel or written -//! to by the kernel depending on how the operation is documented -//! to work. +//! For Linux, look at your system's headers. For example, `/usr/include/linxu/input.h` has a lot +//! of lines defining macros which use `_IOR`, `_IOW`, `_IOC`, and `_IORW`. These macros +//! correspond to the `ior!`, `iow!`, `ioc!`, and `iorw!` macros defined in this crate. +//! Additionally, there is the `ioctl!` macro for creating a wrapper around `ioctl` that is +//! somewhat more type-safe. //! -//! The `op` request code is essentially an arbitrary integer having -//! a device-driver specific meaning. Over time, it proved difficult -//! for various driver implementors to use this field sanely, so a -//! convention with macros was introduced to the Linux Kernel that -//! is used by most newer drivers. See -//! https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt -//! for additional details. The macros exposed by the kernel for -//! consumers are implemented in this module and may be used to -//! instead of calls like `_IOC`, `_IO`, `_IOR`, and `_IOW`. +//! Most `ioctl`s have no or little documentation. You'll need to scrounge through +//! the source to figure out what they do and how they should be used. //! //! # Interface Overview //! -//! This ioctl module seeks to tame the ioctl beast by providing -//! a set of safer (although not safe) functions -//! implementing the most common ioctl access patterns. +//! This ioctl module seeks to tame the ioctl beast by providing a set of safer (although not safe) +//! functions implementing the most common ioctl access patterns. //! //! The most common access patterns for ioctls are as follows: //! |