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Programming input drivers

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1. Creating an input device driver

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1.0 The simplest example

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Here comes a very simple example of an input device driver. The device has

just one button and the button is accessible at i/o port BUTTON_PORT. When

pressed or released a BUTTON_IRQ happens. The driver could look like:

#include 

#include 

#include 

#include 

#include 

static struct input_dev *button_dev;

static void button_interrupt(int irq, void *dummy, struct pt_regs *fp)

{

        input_report_key(button_dev, BTN_1, inb(BUTTON_PORT) & 1);

        input_sync(button_dev);

}

static int __init button_init(void)

{

        int error;

        if (request_irq(BUTTON_IRQ, button_interrupt, 0, "button", NULL)) {

                printk(KERN_ERR "button.c: Can't allocate irq %d\n", button_irq);

                return -EBUSY;

        }

        button_dev = input_allocate_device();

        if (!button_dev) {

                printk(KERN_ERR "button.c: Not enough memory\n");

                error = -ENOMEM;

                goto err_free_irq;

        }

        button_dev->evbit[0] = BIT_MASK(EV_KEY);

        button_dev->keybit[BIT_WORD(BTN_0)] = BIT_MASK(BTN_0);

        error = input_register_device(button_dev);

        if (error) {

                printk(KERN_ERR "button.c: Failed to register device\n");

                goto err_free_dev;

        }

        return 0;

 err_free_dev:

        input_free_device(button_dev);

 err_free_irq:

        free_irq(BUTTON_IRQ, button_interrupt);

        return error;

}

static void __exit button_exit(void)

{

        input_unregister_device(button_dev);

        free_irq(BUTTON_IRQ, button_interrupt);

}

module_init(button_init);

module_exit(button_exit);

1.1 What the example does

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First it has to include the  file, which interfaces to the

input subsystem. This provides all the definitions needed.

In the _init function, which is called either upon module load or when

booting the kernel, it grabs the required resources (it should also check

for the presence of the device).

Then it allocates a new input device structure with input_allocate_device()

and sets up input bitfields. This way the device driver tells the other

parts of the input systems what it is - what events can be generated or

accepted by this input device. Our example device can only generate EV_KEY

type events, and from those only BTN_0 event code. Thus we only set these

two bits. We could have used

        set_bit(EV_KEY, button_dev.evbit);

        set_bit(BTN_0, button_dev.keybit);

as well, but with more than single bits the first approach tends to be

shorter.

Then the example driver registers the input device structure by calling

        input_register_device(&button_dev);

This adds the button_dev structure to linked lists of the input driver and

calls device handler modules _connect functions to tell them a new input

device has appeared. input_register_device() may sleep and therefore must

not be called from an interrupt or with a spinlock held.

While in use, the only used function of the driver is

        button_interrupt()

which upon every interrupt from the button checks its state and reports it

via the

        input_report_key()

call to the input system. There is no need to check whether the interrupt

routine isn't reporting two same value events (press, press for example) to

the input system, because the input_report_* functions check that

themselves.

Then there is the

        input_sync()

call to tell those who receive the events that we've sent a complete report.

This doesn't seem important in the one button case, but is quite important

for for example mouse movement, where you don't want the X and Y values

to be interpreted separately, because that'd result in a different movement.

1.2 dev->open() and dev->close()

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In case the driver has to repeatedly poll the device, because it doesn't

have an interrupt coming from it and the polling is too expensive to be done

all the time, or if the device uses a valuable resource (eg. interrupt), it

can use the open and close callback to know when it can stop polling or

release the interrupt and when it must resume polling or grab the interrupt

again. To do that, we would add this to our example driver:

static int button_open(struct input_dev *dev)

{

        if (request_irq(BUTTON_IRQ, button_interrupt, 0, "button", NULL)) {

                printk(KERN_ERR "button.c: Can't allocate irq %d\n", button_irq);

                return -EBUSY;

        }

        return 0;

}

static void button_close(struct input_dev *dev)

{

        free_irq(IRQ_AMIGA_VERTB, button_interrupt);

}

static int __init button_init(void)

{

        ...

        button_dev->open = button_open;

        button_dev->close = button_close;

        ...

}

Note that input core keeps track of number of users for the device and

makes sure that dev->open() is called only when the first user connects

to the device and that dev->close() is called when the very last user

disconnects. Calls to both callbacks are serialized.

The open() callback should return a 0 in case of success or any nonzero value

in case of failure. The close() callback (which is void) must always succeed.

1.3 Basic event types

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The most simple event type is EV_KEY, which is used for keys and buttons.

It's reported to the input system via:

        input_report_key(struct input_dev *dev, int code, int value)

See linux/input.h for the allowable values of code (from 0 to KEY_MAX).

Value is interpreted as a truth value, ie any nonzero value means key

pressed, zero value means key released. The input code generates events only

in case the value is different from before.

In addition to EV_KEY, there are two more basic event types: EV_REL and

EV_ABS. They are used for relative and absolute values supplied by the

device. A relative value may be for example a mouse movement in the X axis.

The mouse reports it as a relative difference from the last position,

because it doesn't have any absolute coordinate system to work in. Absolute

events are namely for joysticks and digitizers - devices that do work in an

absolute coordinate systems.

Having the device report EV_REL buttons is as simple as with EV_KEY, simply

set the corresponding bits and call the

        input_report_rel(struct input_dev *dev, int code, int value)

function. Events are generated only for nonzero value.

However EV_ABS requires a little special care. Before calling

input_register_device, you have to fill additional fields in the input_dev

struct for each absolute axis your device has. If our button device had also

the ABS_X axis:

        button_dev.absmin[ABS_X] = 0;

        button_dev.absmax[ABS_X] = 255;

        button_dev.absfuzz[ABS_X] = 4;

        button_dev.absflat[ABS_X] = 8;

Or, you can just say:

        input_set_abs_params(button_dev, ABS_X, 0, 255, 4, 8);

This setting would be appropriate for a joystick X axis, with the minimum of

0, maximum of 255 (which the joystick *must* be able to reach, no problem if

it sometimes reports more, but it must be able to always reach the min and

max values), with noise in the data up to +- 4, and with a center flat

position of size 8.

If you don't need absfuzz and absflat, you can set them to zero, which mean

that the thing is precise and always returns to exactly the center position

(if it has any).

1.4 BITS_TO_LONGS(), BIT_WORD(), BIT_MASK()

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These three macros from bitops.h help some bitfield computations:

        BITS_TO_LONGS(x) - returns the length of a bitfield array in longs for

                           x bits

        BIT_WORD(x)      - returns the index in the array in longs for bit x

        BIT_MASK(x)      - returns the index in a long for bit x

1.5 The id* and name fields

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The dev->name should be set before registering the input device by the input

device driver. It's a string like 'Generic button device' containing a

user friendly name of the device.

The id* fields contain the bus ID (PCI, USB, ...), vendor ID and device ID

of the device. The bus IDs are defined in input.h. The vendor and device ids

are defined in pci_ids.h, usb_ids.h and similar include files. These fields

should be set by the input device driver before registering it.

The idtype field can be used for specific information for the input device

driver.

The id and name fields can be passed to userland via the evdev interface.

1.6 The keycode, keycodemax, keycodesize fields

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These three fields should be used by input devices that have dense keymaps.

The keycode is an array used to map from scancodes to input system keycodes.

The keycode max should contain the size of the array and keycodesize the

size of each entry in it (in bytes).

Userspace can query and alter current scancode to keycode mappings using

EVIOCGKEYCODE and EVIOCSKEYCODE ioctls on corresponding evdev interface.

When a device has all 3 aforementioned fields filled in, the driver may

rely on kernel's default implementation of setting and querying keycode

mappings.

1.7 dev->getkeycode() and dev->setkeycode()

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getkeycode() and setkeycode() callbacks allow drivers to override default

keycode/keycodesize/keycodemax mapping mechanism provided by input core

and implement sparse keycode maps.

1.8 Key autorepeat

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... is simple. It is handled by the input.c module. Hardware autorepeat is

not used, because it's not present in many devices and even where it is

present, it is broken sometimes (at keyboards: Toshiba notebooks). To enable

autorepeat for your device, just set EV_REP in dev->evbit. All will be

handled by the input system.

1.9 Other event types, handling output events

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The other event types up to now are:

EV_LED - used for the keyboard LEDs.

EV_SND - used for keyboard beeps.

They are very similar to for example key events, but they go in the other

direction - from the system to the input device driver. If your input device

driver can handle these events, it has to set the respective bits in evbit,

*and* also the callback routine:

        button_dev->event = button_event;

int button_event(struct input_dev *dev, unsigned int type, unsigned int code, int value);

{

        if (type == EV_SND && code == SND_BELL) {

                outb(value, BUTTON_BELL);

                return 0;

        }

        return -1;

}

This callback routine can be called from an interrupt or a BH (although that

isn't a rule), and thus must not sleep, and must not take too long to finish.