Re: Inter-device-driver communication?

[Jeff Garzik]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Timur Tabi wrote:
> Could someone tell me what is the preferred method of having two drivers
> communicate with each other?  I know a driver can send an ioctl to another
> driver, but since both drivers exist in kernel space, and the kernel is
> monolithic, I figured that direct calls from one driver to another is not only
> possible but common.

> Also, is it possible for one driver to load another driver?  Would that require
> kerneld, or is there a more direct procedure?

Unfortunately this question is a bit too high level...

You can certain have one driver load another via modprobe (grep for
CONFIG_KMOD), but if both drivers will be required, module dependencies
might simply pull in one of the drivers automatically.

For driver<->driver communication, it is totally dependent on what you
need to communicate.  It could be something as simple as a small, shared
module protected by a spinlock, or something more complex.  Really task
dependent..

	Jeff