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DEVICE(9)		 BSD Kernel Developer's	Manual		     DEVICE(9)

NAME
     device -- an abstract representation of a device

SYNOPSIS
     typedef struct device *device_t;

DESCRIPTION
     The device	object represents a piece of hardware attached to the system
     such as an	expansion card,	the bus	which that card	is plugged into, disk
     drives attached to	the expansion card etc.	 The system defines one	de-
     vice, root_bus and	all other devices are created dynamically during auto-
     configuration.  Normally devices representing top-level busses in the
     system (ISA, PCI etc.) will be attached directly to root_bus and other
     devices will be added as children of their	relevant bus.

     The devices in a system form a tree.  All devices except root_bus have a
     parent (see device_get_parent(9)).	 In addition, any device can have
     children attached to it (see device_add_child(9),
     device_add_child_ordered(9), device_find_child(9),
     device_get_children(9), and device_delete_child(9)).

     A device which has	been successfully probed and attached to the system
     will also have a driver (see device_get_driver(9) and driver(9)) and a
     devclass (see device_get_devclass(9) and devclass(9)).  Various other at-
     tributes of the device include a unit number (see device_get_unit(9)),
     verbose description (normally supplied by the driver, see
     device_set_desc(9)	and device_get_desc(9)), a set of bus-specific vari-
     ables (see	device_get_ivars(9)) and a set of driver-specific variables
     (see device_get_softc(9)).

     Devices can be in one of several states:

     DS_NOTPRESENT  the	device has not been probed for existence or the	probe
		    failed

     DS_ALIVE	    the	device probe succeeded but not yet attached

     DS_ATTACHED    the	device has been	successfully attached

     DS_BUSY	    the	device is currently open

     The current state of the device can be determined by calling
     device_get_state(9).

SEE ALSO
     devclass(9), driver(9)

AUTHORS
     This manual page was written by Doug Rabson.

BSD				 June 16, 1998				   BSD

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS

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