Method and apparatus for intercommunications amongst device drivers
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsJoshua de Cesare, Simon Douglas, Alexei Elias Kosut
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Abstract
Techniques for intercommunication amongst device drivers are described herein. In one embodiment, an application programming interface (API) is provided by a kernel of an operating system (OS) running within a data processing system. The API is accessible by device drivers associated with multiple devices installed in the system. In response to a request from a first instance of a driver the API, information indicating whether another instance of the same driver is currently started is returned via the API. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.
Claims11
A computer system architecture, comprising:
- a plurality of device drivers loaded in a kernel of an operating system of a computer, each of the device drivers corresponding to a device presented in the computer;
- and
- an application programming interface (API) for coupling the kernel with the plurality of device drivers, the API enabling an instance of a device driver to communicate with the kernel to determine whether another instance of the device driver is currently loaded.
A computer implemented method, comprising:
- a first instance of a driver calling an application programming interface (API) maintained by a kernel of an operating system, the first instance of the driver being identified via a first driver identifier;
- and
- in response to a result of calling the API, the first instance of the driver determining whether a second instance of the driver has been initialized.
A machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a machine, cause a machine to perform a method, the method comprising:
- a first instance of a driver calling an application programming interface (API) maintained by a kernel of an operating system, the first instance of the driver being identified via a first driver identifier;
- and
- in response to a result of calling the API, the first instance of the driver determining whether a second instance of the driver has been initialized.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.