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 HIDRAW - Raw Access to USB and Bluetooth Human Interface Devices
 ================================================================
 
 The hidraw driver provides a raw interface to USB and Bluetooth Human
 Interface Devices (HIDs).  It differs from hiddev in that reports sent and
 received are not parsed by the HID parser, but are sent to and received from
 the device unmodified.
 
 Hidraw should be used if the userspace application knows exactly how to
 communicate with the hardware device, and is able to construct the HID
 reports manually.  This is often the case when making userspace drivers for
 custom HID devices.
 
 Hidraw is also useful for communicating with non-conformant HID devices
 which send and receive data in a way that is inconsistent with their report
 descriptors.  Because hiddev parses reports which are sent and received
 through it, checking them against the device's report descriptor, such
 communication with these non-conformant devices is impossible using hiddev.
 Hidraw is the only alternative, short of writing a custom kernel driver, for
 these non-conformant devices.
 
 A benefit of hidraw is that its use by userspace applications is independent
 of the underlying hardware type.  Currently, hidraw is implemented for USB
 and Bluetooth.  In the future, as new hardware bus types are developed which
 use the HID specification, hidraw will be expanded to add support for these
 new bus types.
 
 Hidraw uses a dynamic major number, meaning that udev should be relied on to
 create hidraw device nodes.  Udev will typically create the device nodes
 directly under /dev (eg: /dev/hidraw0).  As this location is distribution-
 and udev rule-dependent, applications should use libudev to locate hidraw
 devices attached to the system.  There is a tutorial on libudev with a
 working example at::
 
         http://www.signal11.us/oss/udev/
         https://web.archive.org/web/2019*/www.signal11.us
 
 The HIDRAW API
 ---------------
 
 read()
 -------
 read() will read a queued report received from the HID device. On USB
 devices, the reports read using read() are the reports sent from the device
 on the INTERRUPT IN endpoint.  By default, read() will block until there is
 a report available to be read.  read() can be made non-blocking, by passing
 the O_NONBLOCK flag to open(), or by setting the O_NONBLOCK flag using
 fcntl().
 
 On a device which uses numbered reports, the first byte of the returned data
 will be the report number; the report data follows, beginning in the second
 byte.  For devices which do not use numbered reports, the report data
 will begin at the first byte.
 
 write()
 -------
 The write() function will write a report to the device. For USB devices, if
 the device has an INTERRUPT OUT endpoint, the report will be sent on that
 endpoint. If it does not, the report will be sent over the control endpoint,
 using a SET_REPORT transfer.
 
 The first byte of the buffer passed to write() should be set to the report
 number.  If the device does not use numbered reports, the first byte should
 be set to 0. The report data itself should begin at the second byte.
 
 ioctl()
 -------
 Hidraw supports the following ioctls:
 
 HIDIOCGRDESCSIZE:
         Get Report Descriptor Size
 
 This ioctl will get the size of the device's report descriptor.
 
 HIDIOCGRDESC:
         Get Report Descriptor
 
 This ioctl returns the device's report descriptor using a
 hidraw_report_descriptor struct.  Make sure to set the size field of the
 hidraw_report_descriptor struct to the size returned from HIDIOCGRDESCSIZE.
 
 HIDIOCGRAWINFO:
         Get Raw Info
 
 This ioctl will return a hidraw_devinfo struct containing the bus type, the
 vendor ID (VID), and product ID (PID) of the device. The bus type can be one
 of::
 
         - BUS_USB
         - BUS_HIL
         - BUS_BLUETOOTH
         - BUS_VIRTUAL
 
 which are defined in uapi/linux/input.h.
 
 HIDIOCGRAWNAME(len):
         Get Raw Name
 
 This ioctl returns a string containing the vendor and product strings of
 the device.  The returned string is Unicode, UTF-8 encoded.
 
 HIDIOCGRAWPHYS(len):
         Get Physical Address
 
 This ioctl returns a string representing the physical address of the device.
 For USB devices, the string contains the physical path to the device (the
 USB controller, hubs, ports, etc).  For Bluetooth devices, the string
 contains the hardware (MAC) address of the device.
 
 HIDIOCSFEATURE(len):
         Send a Feature Report
 
 This ioctl will send a feature report to the device.  Per the HID
 specification, feature reports are always sent using the control endpoint.
 Set the first byte of the supplied buffer to the report number.  For devices
 which do not use numbered reports, set the first byte to 0. The report data
 begins in the second byte. Make sure to set len accordingly, to one more
 than the length of the report (to account for the report number).
 
 HIDIOCGFEATURE(len):
         Get a Feature Report
 
 This ioctl will request a feature report from the device using the control
 endpoint.  The first byte of the supplied buffer should be set to the report
 number of the requested report.  For devices which do not use numbered
 reports, set the first byte to 0.  The returned report buffer will contain the
 report number in the first byte, followed by the report data read from the
 device.  For devices which do not use numbered reports, the report data will
 begin at the first byte of the returned buffer.
 
 HIDIOCSINPUT(len):
         Send an Input Report
 
 This ioctl will send an input report to the device, using the control endpoint.
 In most cases, setting an input HID report on a device is meaningless and has
 no effect, but some devices may choose to use this to set or reset an initial
 state of a report.  The format of the buffer issued with this report is identical
 to that of HIDIOCSFEATURE.
 
 HIDIOCGINPUT(len):
         Get an Input Report
 
 This ioctl will request an input report from the device using the control
 endpoint.  This is slower on most devices where a dedicated In endpoint exists
 for regular input reports, but allows the host to request the value of a
 specific report number.  Typically, this is used to request the initial states of
 an input report of a device, before an application listens for normal reports via
 the regular device read() interface.  The format of the buffer issued with this report
 is identical to that of HIDIOCGFEATURE.
 
 HIDIOCSOUTPUT(len):
         Send an Output Report
 
 This ioctl will send an output report to the device, using the control endpoint.
 This is slower on most devices where a dedicated Out endpoint exists for regular
 output reports, but is added for completeness.  Typically, this is used to set
 the initial states of an output report of a device, before an application sends
 updates via the regular device write() interface. The format of the buffer issued
 with this report is identical to that of HIDIOCSFEATURE.
 
 HIDIOCGOUTPUT(len):
         Get an Output Report
 
 This ioctl will request an output report from the device using the control
 endpoint.  Typically, this is used to retrive the initial state of
 an output report of a device, before an application updates it as necessary either
 via a HIDIOCSOUTPUT request, or the regular device write() interface.  The format
 of the buffer issued with this report is identical to that of HIDIOCGFEATURE.
 
 Example
 -------
 In samples/, find hid-example.c, which shows examples of read(), write(),
 and all the ioctls for hidraw.  The code may be used by anyone for any
 purpose, and can serve as a starting point for developing applications using
 hidraw.
 
 Document by:
 
         Alan Ott <alan@signal11.us>, Signal 11 Software

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