diff options
| author | Alan Ott <alan@signal11.us> | 2011-03-19 20:29:45 -0400 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz> | 2011-03-22 06:43:51 -0400 |
| commit | 1a978c50c6cff743c3516ffa6d2ce44382e7b70b (patch) | |
| tree | 0ba8649d5d53ff41f7a88b28490181e7af553189 /Documentation/hid | |
| parent | c54ea4918c2b7722d7242ea53271356501988a9b (diff) | |
HID: Move hiddev.txt to the new Documentation/hid directory
With the new Documentation/hid directory, it makes sense to have
hiddev.txt here as well.
Signed-off-by: Alan Ott <alan@signal11.us>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/hid')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/hid/hiddev.txt | 205 |
1 files changed, 205 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/hid/hiddev.txt b/Documentation/hid/hiddev.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..6e8c9f1d2f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/hid/hiddev.txt | |||
| @@ -0,0 +1,205 @@ | |||
| 1 | Care and feeding of your Human Interface Devices | ||
| 2 | |||
| 3 | INTRODUCTION | ||
| 4 | |||
| 5 | In addition to the normal input type HID devices, USB also uses the | ||
| 6 | human interface device protocols for things that are not really human | ||
| 7 | interfaces, but have similar sorts of communication needs. The two big | ||
| 8 | examples for this are power devices (especially uninterruptable power | ||
| 9 | supplies) and monitor control on higher end monitors. | ||
| 10 | |||
| 11 | To support these disparate requirements, the Linux USB system provides | ||
| 12 | HID events to two separate interfaces: | ||
| 13 | * the input subsystem, which converts HID events into normal input | ||
| 14 | device interfaces (such as keyboard, mouse and joystick) and a | ||
| 15 | normalised event interface - see Documentation/input/input.txt | ||
| 16 | * the hiddev interface, which provides fairly raw HID events | ||
| 17 | |||
| 18 | The data flow for a HID event produced by a device is something like | ||
| 19 | the following : | ||
| 20 | |||
| 21 | usb.c ---> hid-core.c ----> hid-input.c ----> [keyboard/mouse/joystick/event] | ||
| 22 | | | ||
| 23 | | | ||
| 24 | --> hiddev.c ----> POWER / MONITOR CONTROL | ||
| 25 | |||
| 26 | In addition, other subsystems (apart from USB) can potentially feed | ||
| 27 | events into the input subsystem, but these have no effect on the hid | ||
| 28 | device interface. | ||
| 29 | |||
| 30 | USING THE HID DEVICE INTERFACE | ||
| 31 | |||
| 32 | The hiddev interface is a char interface using the normal USB major, | ||
| 33 | with the minor numbers starting at 96 and finishing at 111. Therefore, | ||
| 34 | you need the following commands: | ||
| 35 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev0 c 180 96 | ||
| 36 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev1 c 180 97 | ||
| 37 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev2 c 180 98 | ||
| 38 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev3 c 180 99 | ||
| 39 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev4 c 180 100 | ||
| 40 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev5 c 180 101 | ||
| 41 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev6 c 180 102 | ||
| 42 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev7 c 180 103 | ||
| 43 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev8 c 180 104 | ||
| 44 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev9 c 180 105 | ||
| 45 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev10 c 180 106 | ||
| 46 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev11 c 180 107 | ||
| 47 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev12 c 180 108 | ||
| 48 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev13 c 180 109 | ||
| 49 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev14 c 180 110 | ||
| 50 | mknod /dev/usb/hiddev15 c 180 111 | ||
| 51 | |||
| 52 | So you point your hiddev compliant user-space program at the correct | ||
| 53 | interface for your device, and it all just works. | ||
| 54 | |||
| 55 | Assuming that you have a hiddev compliant user-space program, of | ||
| 56 | course. If you need to write one, read on. | ||
| 57 | |||
| 58 | |||
| 59 | THE HIDDEV API | ||
| 60 | This description should be read in conjunction with the HID | ||
| 61 | specification, freely available from http://www.usb.org, and | ||
| 62 | conveniently linked of http://www.linux-usb.org. | ||
| 63 | |||
| 64 | The hiddev API uses a read() interface, and a set of ioctl() calls. | ||
| 65 | |||
| 66 | HID devices exchange data with the host computer using data | ||
| 67 | bundles called "reports". Each report is divided into "fields", | ||
| 68 | each of which can have one or more "usages". In the hid-core, | ||
| 69 | each one of these usages has a single signed 32 bit value. | ||
| 70 | |||
| 71 | read(): | ||
| 72 | This is the event interface. When the HID device's state changes, | ||
| 73 | it performs an interrupt transfer containing a report which contains | ||
| 74 | the changed value. The hid-core.c module parses the report, and | ||
| 75 | returns to hiddev.c the individual usages that have changed within | ||
| 76 | the report. In its basic mode, the hiddev will make these individual | ||
| 77 | usage changes available to the reader using a struct hiddev_event: | ||
| 78 | |||
| 79 | struct hiddev_event { | ||
| 80 | unsigned hid; | ||
| 81 | signed int value; | ||
| 82 | }; | ||
| 83 | |||
| 84 | containing the HID usage identifier for the status that changed, and | ||
| 85 | the value that it was changed to. Note that the structure is defined | ||
| 86 | within <linux/hiddev.h>, along with some other useful #defines and | ||
| 87 | structures. The HID usage identifier is a composite of the HID usage | ||
| 88 | page shifted to the 16 high order bits ORed with the usage code. The | ||
| 89 | behavior of the read() function can be modified using the HIDIOCSFLAG | ||
| 90 | ioctl() described below. | ||
| 91 | |||
| 92 | |||
| 93 | ioctl(): | ||
| 94 | This is the control interface. There are a number of controls: | ||
| 95 | |||
| 96 | HIDIOCGVERSION - int (read) | ||
| 97 | Gets the version code out of the hiddev driver. | ||
| 98 | |||
| 99 | HIDIOCAPPLICATION - (none) | ||
| 100 | This ioctl call returns the HID application usage associated with the | ||
| 101 | hid device. The third argument to ioctl() specifies which application | ||
| 102 | index to get. This is useful when the device has more than one | ||
| 103 | application collection. If the index is invalid (greater or equal to | ||
| 104 | the number of application collections this device has) the ioctl | ||
| 105 | returns -1. You can find out beforehand how many application | ||
| 106 | collections the device has from the num_applications field from the | ||
| 107 | hiddev_devinfo structure. | ||
| 108 | |||
| 109 | HIDIOCGCOLLECTIONINFO - struct hiddev_collection_info (read/write) | ||
| 110 | This returns a superset of the information above, providing not only | ||
| 111 | application collections, but all the collections the device has. It | ||
| 112 | also returns the level the collection lives in the hierarchy. | ||
| 113 | The user passes in a hiddev_collection_info struct with the index | ||
| 114 | field set to the index that should be returned. The ioctl fills in | ||
| 115 | the other fields. If the index is larger than the last collection | ||
| 116 | index, the ioctl returns -1 and sets errno to -EINVAL. | ||
| 117 | |||
| 118 | HIDIOCGDEVINFO - struct hiddev_devinfo (read) | ||
| 119 | Gets a hiddev_devinfo structure which describes the device. | ||
| 120 | |||
| 121 | HIDIOCGSTRING - struct hiddev_string_descriptor (read/write) | ||
| 122 | Gets a string descriptor from the device. The caller must fill in the | ||
| 123 | "index" field to indicate which descriptor should be returned. | ||
| 124 | |||
| 125 | HIDIOCINITREPORT - (none) | ||
| 126 | Instructs the kernel to retrieve all input and feature report values | ||
| 127 | from the device. At this point, all the usage structures will contain | ||
| 128 | current values for the device, and will maintain it as the device | ||
| 129 | changes. Note that the use of this ioctl is unnecessary in general, | ||
| 130 | since later kernels automatically initialize the reports from the | ||
| 131 | device at attach time. | ||
| 132 | |||
| 133 | HIDIOCGNAME - string (variable length) | ||
| 134 | Gets the device name | ||
| 135 | |||
| 136 | HIDIOCGREPORT - struct hiddev_report_info (write) | ||
| 137 | Instructs the kernel to get a feature or input report from the device, | ||
| 138 | in order to selectively update the usage structures (in contrast to | ||
| 139 | INITREPORT). | ||
| 140 | |||
| 141 | HIDIOCSREPORT - struct hiddev_report_info (write) | ||
| 142 | Instructs the kernel to send a report to the device. This report can | ||
| 143 | be filled in by the user through HIDIOCSUSAGE calls (below) to fill in | ||
| 144 | individual usage values in the report before sending the report in full | ||
| 145 | to the device. | ||
| 146 | |||
| 147 | HIDIOCGREPORTINFO - struct hiddev_report_info (read/write) | ||
| 148 | Fills in a hiddev_report_info structure for the user. The report is | ||
| 149 | looked up by type (input, output or feature) and id, so these fields | ||
| 150 | must be filled in by the user. The ID can be absolute -- the actual | ||
| 151 | report id as reported by the device -- or relative -- | ||
| 152 | HID_REPORT_ID_FIRST for the first report, and (HID_REPORT_ID_NEXT | | ||
| 153 | report_id) for the next report after report_id. Without a-priori | ||
| 154 | information about report ids, the right way to use this ioctl is to | ||
| 155 | use the relative IDs above to enumerate the valid IDs. The ioctl | ||
| 156 | returns non-zero when there is no more next ID. The real report ID is | ||
| 157 | filled into the returned hiddev_report_info structure. | ||
| 158 | |||
| 159 | HIDIOCGFIELDINFO - struct hiddev_field_info (read/write) | ||
| 160 | Returns the field information associated with a report in a | ||
| 161 | hiddev_field_info structure. The user must fill in report_id and | ||
| 162 | report_type in this structure, as above. The field_index should also | ||
| 163 | be filled in, which should be a number from 0 and maxfield-1, as | ||
| 164 | returned from a previous HIDIOCGREPORTINFO call. | ||
| 165 | |||
| 166 | HIDIOCGUCODE - struct hiddev_usage_ref (read/write) | ||
| 167 | Returns the usage_code in a hiddev_usage_ref structure, given that | ||
| 168 | given its report type, report id, field index, and index within the | ||
| 169 | field have already been filled into the structure. | ||
| 170 | |||
| 171 | HIDIOCGUSAGE - struct hiddev_usage_ref (read/write) | ||
| 172 | Returns the value of a usage in a hiddev_usage_ref structure. The | ||
| 173 | usage to be retrieved can be specified as above, or the user can | ||
| 174 | choose to fill in the report_type field and specify the report_id as | ||
| 175 | HID_REPORT_ID_UNKNOWN. In this case, the hiddev_usage_ref will be | ||
| 176 | filled in with the report and field information associated with this | ||
| 177 | usage if it is found. | ||
| 178 | |||
| 179 | HIDIOCSUSAGE - struct hiddev_usage_ref (write) | ||
| 180 | Sets the value of a usage in an output report. The user fills in | ||
| 181 | the hiddev_usage_ref structure as above, but additionally fills in | ||
| 182 | the value field. | ||
| 183 | |||
| 184 | HIDIOGCOLLECTIONINDEX - struct hiddev_usage_ref (write) | ||
| 185 | Returns the collection index associated with this usage. This | ||
| 186 | indicates where in the collection hierarchy this usage sits. | ||
| 187 | |||
| 188 | HIDIOCGFLAG - int (read) | ||
| 189 | HIDIOCSFLAG - int (write) | ||
| 190 | These operations respectively inspect and replace the mode flags | ||
| 191 | that influence the read() call above. The flags are as follows: | ||
| 192 | |||
| 193 | HIDDEV_FLAG_UREF - read() calls will now return | ||
| 194 | struct hiddev_usage_ref instead of struct hiddev_event. | ||
| 195 | This is a larger structure, but in situations where the | ||
| 196 | device has more than one usage in its reports with the | ||
| 197 | same usage code, this mode serves to resolve such | ||
| 198 | ambiguity. | ||
| 199 | |||
| 200 | HIDDEV_FLAG_REPORT - This flag can only be used in conjunction | ||
| 201 | with HIDDEV_FLAG_UREF. With this flag set, when the device | ||
| 202 | sends a report, a struct hiddev_usage_ref will be returned | ||
| 203 | to read() filled in with the report_type and report_id, but | ||
| 204 | with field_index set to FIELD_INDEX_NONE. This serves as | ||
| 205 | additional notification when the device has sent a report. | ||
