Method and system for exposing proprietary APIs in a privileged device driver to an application
US6671743B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 13, 1998 |
| Grant date | Dec 30, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Nov 13, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/4486
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for interfacing of application programs with operating system device drivers is provided. The method includes a variety of steps such as assigning an arbitrary message number to each of a plurality of functions from a device driver. Wrapper programs for the application and the device driver are provided. The method then includes a step of providing a ‘surrogate’ function for the application to call. Parameters passed into the function are extracted by the wrapper program for the application. The parameters are next stored into a data packet along with a corresponding message number. Next, the data packet is sent to the wrapper program for the device driver. In a subsequent step, the device driver wrapper program determines which function the application is invoking by the message, unpacks the parameters from the data packet and calls the corresponding function in the device driver. In many embodiments, data returned from the function is passed back through an analogous mechanism. The combination of these steps can provide an interface between the application and the device driver.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.