Patent · US Expired

Method and architecture for dynamic device drivers

US6735756B1 · kind B1 · utility

15Cited by
24References
28Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateFeb 22, 2002
Grant dateMay 11, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 21, 2022

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/44536
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

In a plurality of logical device driver instances, each instance (201) representing a specific version (220) of the device driver, can be accessed by an embedded application (200) via a common interface (205). A logical device driver instance includes the common interface which includes a plurality of functions (206-209) linked to the embedded application. A logical device driver also includes a virtual function table (211) having pointers (212-215) that points from each of the plurality of functions of the common interface to a plurality of functions (221-224) of a specific version of the device driver among a plurality of versions of the device driver. The virtual function table is set up dynamically during run-time initialization of a logical device driver instance.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.