NAME

     uio, uiomove, uiomove_frombuf, uiomove_nofault — device driver I/O routines

SYNOPSIS

     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <sys/uio.h>

     struct uio {
             struct  iovec *uio_iov;         /* scatter/gather list */
             int     uio_iovcnt;             /* length of scatter/gather list */
             off_t   uio_offset;             /* offset in target object */
             ssize_t uio_resid;              /* remaining bytes to copy */
             enum    uio_seg uio_segflg;     /* address space */
             enum    uio_rw uio_rw;          /* operation */
             struct  thread *uio_td;         /* owner */
     };

     int
     uiomove(void *buf, int howmuch, struct uio *uiop);

     int
     uiomove_frombuf(void *buf, int howmuch, struct uio *uiop);

     int
     uiomove_nofault(void *buf, int howmuch, struct uio *uiop);

DESCRIPTION

     The functions uiomove(), uiomove_frombuf(), and uiomove_nofault() are used to transfer data
     between buffers and I/O vectors that might possibly cross the user/kernel space boundary.

     As a result of any read(2), write(2), readv(2), or writev(2) system call that is being
     passed to a character-device driver, the appropriate driver d_read or d_write entry will be
     called with a pointer to a struct uio being passed.  The transfer request is encoded in this
     structure.  The driver itself should use uiomove() or uiomove_nofault() to get at the data
     in this structure.

     The fields in the uio structure are:

     uio_iov     The array of I/O vectors to be processed.  In the case of scatter/gather I/O,
                 this will be more than one vector.

     uio_iovcnt  The number of I/O vectors present.

     uio_offset  The offset into the device.

     uio_resid   The remaining number of bytes to process, updated after transfer.

     uio_segflg  One of the following flags:

                 UIO_USERSPACE  The I/O vector points into a process's address space.

                 UIO_SYSSPACE   The I/O vector points into the kernel address space.

                 UIO_NOCOPY     Do not copy, already in object.

     uio_rw      The direction of the desired transfer, either UIO_READ or UIO_WRITE.

     uio_td      The pointer to a struct thread for the associated thread; used if uio_segflg
                 indicates that the transfer is to be made from/to a process's address space.

     The function uiomove_nofault() requires that the buffer and I/O vectors be accessible
     without incurring a page fault.  The source and destination addresses must be physically
     mapped for read and write access, respectively, and neither the source nor destination
     addresses may be pageable.  Thus, the function uiomove_nofault() can be called from contexts
     where acquiring virtual memory system locks or sleeping are prohibited.

     The uiomove_frombuf() function is a convenience wrapper around uiomove() for drivers that
     serve data which is wholly contained within an existing buffer in memory.  It validates the
     uio_offset and uio_resid values against the size of the existing buffer, handling short
     transfers when the request partially overlaps the buffer.  When uio_offset is greater than
     or equal to the buffer size, the result is success with no bytes transferred, effectively
     signaling EOF.

RETURN VALUES

     On success uiomove(), uiomove_frombuf(), and uiomove_nofault() will return 0; on error they
     will return an appropriate error code.

EXAMPLES

     The idea is that the driver maintains a private buffer for its data, and processes the
     request in chunks of maximal the size of this buffer.  Note that the buffer handling below
     is very simplified and will not work (the buffer pointer is not being advanced in case of a
     partial read), it is just here to demonstrate the uio handling.

     /* MIN() can be found there: */
     #include <sys/param.h>

     #define BUFSIZE 512
     static char buffer[BUFSIZE];

     static int data_available;      /* amount of data that can be read */

     static int
     fooread(struct cdev *dev, struct uio *uio, int flag)
     {
             int rv, amnt;

             rv = 0;
             while (uio->uio_resid > 0) {
                     if (data_available > 0) {
                             amnt = MIN(uio->uio_resid, data_available);
                             rv = uiomove(buffer, amnt, uio);
                             if (rv != 0)
                                     break;
                             data_available -= amnt;
                     } else
                             tsleep(...);    /* wait for a better time */
             }
             if (rv != 0) {
                     /* do error cleanup here */
             }
             return (rv);
     }

ERRORS

     uiomove() and uiomove_nofault() will fail and return the following error code if:

     [EFAULT]           The invoked copyin(9) or copyout(9) returned EFAULT

     In addition, uiomove_nofault() will fail and return the following error code if:

     [EFAULT]           A page fault occurs.

SEE ALSO

     read(2), readv(2), write(2), writev(2), copyin(9), copyout(9), sleep(9)

HISTORY

     The uio mechanism appeared in some early version of UNIX.

AUTHORS

     This manual page was written by Jörg Wunsch.