0001 ============================================
0002 Implementing I2C device drivers in userspace
0003 ============================================
0004
0005 Usually, I2C devices are controlled by a kernel driver. But it is also
0006 possible to access all devices on an adapter from userspace, through
0007 the /dev interface. You need to load module i2c-dev for this.
0008
0009 Each registered I2C adapter gets a number, counting from 0. You can
0010 examine /sys/class/i2c-dev/ to see what number corresponds to which adapter.
0011 Alternatively, you can run "i2cdetect -l" to obtain a formatted list of all
0012 I2C adapters present on your system at a given time. i2cdetect is part of
0013 the i2c-tools package.
0014
0015 I2C device files are character device files with major device number 89
0016 and a minor device number corresponding to the number assigned as
0017 explained above. They should be called "i2c-%d" (i2c-0, i2c-1, ...,
0018 i2c-10, ...). All 256 minor device numbers are reserved for I2C.
0019
0020
0021 C example
0022 =========
0023
0024 So let's say you want to access an I2C adapter from a C program.
0025 First, you need to include these two headers::
0026
0027 #include <linux/i2c-dev.h>
0028 #include <i2c/smbus.h>
0029
0030 Now, you have to decide which adapter you want to access. You should
0031 inspect /sys/class/i2c-dev/ or run "i2cdetect -l" to decide this.
0032 Adapter numbers are assigned somewhat dynamically, so you can not
0033 assume much about them. They can even change from one boot to the next.
0034
0035 Next thing, open the device file, as follows::
0036
0037 int file;
0038 int adapter_nr = 2; /* probably dynamically determined */
0039 char filename[20];
0040
0041 snprintf(filename, 19, "/dev/i2c-%d", adapter_nr);
0042 file = open(filename, O_RDWR);
0043 if (file < 0) {
0044 /* ERROR HANDLING; you can check errno to see what went wrong */
0045 exit(1);
0046 }
0047
0048 When you have opened the device, you must specify with what device
0049 address you want to communicate::
0050
0051 int addr = 0x40; /* The I2C address */
0052
0053 if (ioctl(file, I2C_SLAVE, addr) < 0) {
0054 /* ERROR HANDLING; you can check errno to see what went wrong */
0055 exit(1);
0056 }
0057
0058 Well, you are all set up now. You can now use SMBus commands or plain
0059 I2C to communicate with your device. SMBus commands are preferred if
0060 the device supports them. Both are illustrated below::
0061
0062 __u8 reg = 0x10; /* Device register to access */
0063 __s32 res;
0064 char buf[10];
0065
0066 /* Using SMBus commands */
0067 res = i2c_smbus_read_word_data(file, reg);
0068 if (res < 0) {
0069 /* ERROR HANDLING: I2C transaction failed */
0070 } else {
0071 /* res contains the read word */
0072 }
0073
0074 /*
0075 * Using I2C Write, equivalent of
0076 * i2c_smbus_write_word_data(file, reg, 0x6543)
0077 */
0078 buf[0] = reg;
0079 buf[1] = 0x43;
0080 buf[2] = 0x65;
0081 if (write(file, buf, 3) != 3) {
0082 /* ERROR HANDLING: I2C transaction failed */
0083 }
0084
0085 /* Using I2C Read, equivalent of i2c_smbus_read_byte(file) */
0086 if (read(file, buf, 1) != 1) {
0087 /* ERROR HANDLING: I2C transaction failed */
0088 } else {
0089 /* buf[0] contains the read byte */
0090 }
0091
0092 Note that only a subset of the I2C and SMBus protocols can be achieved by
0093 the means of read() and write() calls. In particular, so-called combined
0094 transactions (mixing read and write messages in the same transaction)
0095 aren't supported. For this reason, this interface is almost never used by
0096 user-space programs.
0097
0098 IMPORTANT: because of the use of inline functions, you *have* to use
0099 '-O' or some variation when you compile your program!
0100
0101
0102 Full interface description
0103 ==========================
0104
0105 The following IOCTLs are defined:
0106
0107 ``ioctl(file, I2C_SLAVE, long addr)``
0108 Change slave address. The address is passed in the 7 lower bits of the
0109 argument (except for 10 bit addresses, passed in the 10 lower bits in this
0110 case).
0111
0112 ``ioctl(file, I2C_TENBIT, long select)``
0113 Selects ten bit addresses if select not equals 0, selects normal 7 bit
0114 addresses if select equals 0. Default 0. This request is only valid
0115 if the adapter has I2C_FUNC_10BIT_ADDR.
0116
0117 ``ioctl(file, I2C_PEC, long select)``
0118 Selects SMBus PEC (packet error checking) generation and verification
0119 if select not equals 0, disables if select equals 0. Default 0.
0120 Used only for SMBus transactions. This request only has an effect if the
0121 the adapter has I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_PEC; it is still safe if not, it just
0122 doesn't have any effect.
0123
0124 ``ioctl(file, I2C_FUNCS, unsigned long *funcs)``
0125 Gets the adapter functionality and puts it in ``*funcs``.
0126
0127 ``ioctl(file, I2C_RDWR, struct i2c_rdwr_ioctl_data *msgset)``
0128 Do combined read/write transaction without stop in between.
0129 Only valid if the adapter has I2C_FUNC_I2C. The argument is
0130 a pointer to a::
0131
0132 struct i2c_rdwr_ioctl_data {
0133 struct i2c_msg *msgs; /* ptr to array of simple messages */
0134 int nmsgs; /* number of messages to exchange */
0135 }
0136
0137 The msgs[] themselves contain further pointers into data buffers.
0138 The function will write or read data to or from that buffers depending
0139 on whether the I2C_M_RD flag is set in a particular message or not.
0140 The slave address and whether to use ten bit address mode has to be
0141 set in each message, overriding the values set with the above ioctl's.
0142
0143 ``ioctl(file, I2C_SMBUS, struct i2c_smbus_ioctl_data *args)``
0144 If possible, use the provided ``i2c_smbus_*`` methods described below instead
0145 of issuing direct ioctls.
0146
0147 You can do plain I2C transactions by using read(2) and write(2) calls.
0148 You do not need to pass the address byte; instead, set it through
0149 ioctl I2C_SLAVE before you try to access the device.
0150
0151 You can do SMBus level transactions (see documentation file smbus-protocol.rst
0152 for details) through the following functions::
0153
0154 __s32 i2c_smbus_write_quick(int file, __u8 value);
0155 __s32 i2c_smbus_read_byte(int file);
0156 __s32 i2c_smbus_write_byte(int file, __u8 value);
0157 __s32 i2c_smbus_read_byte_data(int file, __u8 command);
0158 __s32 i2c_smbus_write_byte_data(int file, __u8 command, __u8 value);
0159 __s32 i2c_smbus_read_word_data(int file, __u8 command);
0160 __s32 i2c_smbus_write_word_data(int file, __u8 command, __u16 value);
0161 __s32 i2c_smbus_process_call(int file, __u8 command, __u16 value);
0162 __s32 i2c_smbus_block_process_call(int file, __u8 command, __u8 length,
0163 __u8 *values);
0164 __s32 i2c_smbus_read_block_data(int file, __u8 command, __u8 *values);
0165 __s32 i2c_smbus_write_block_data(int file, __u8 command, __u8 length,
0166 __u8 *values);
0167
0168 All these transactions return -1 on failure; you can read errno to see
0169 what happened. The 'write' transactions return 0 on success; the
0170 'read' transactions return the read value, except for read_block, which
0171 returns the number of values read. The block buffers need not be longer
0172 than 32 bytes.
0173
0174 The above functions are made available by linking against the libi2c library,
0175 which is provided by the i2c-tools project. See:
0176 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/i2c-tools/i2c-tools.git/.
0177
0178
0179 Implementation details
0180 ======================
0181
0182 For the interested, here's the code flow which happens inside the kernel
0183 when you use the /dev interface to I2C:
0184
0185 1) Your program opens /dev/i2c-N and calls ioctl() on it, as described in
0186 section "C example" above.
0187
0188 2) These open() and ioctl() calls are handled by the i2c-dev kernel
0189 driver: see i2c-dev.c:i2cdev_open() and i2c-dev.c:i2cdev_ioctl(),
0190 respectively. You can think of i2c-dev as a generic I2C chip driver
0191 that can be programmed from user-space.
0192
0193 3) Some ioctl() calls are for administrative tasks and are handled by
0194 i2c-dev directly. Examples include I2C_SLAVE (set the address of the
0195 device you want to access) and I2C_PEC (enable or disable SMBus error
0196 checking on future transactions.)
0197
0198 4) Other ioctl() calls are converted to in-kernel function calls by
0199 i2c-dev. Examples include I2C_FUNCS, which queries the I2C adapter
0200 functionality using i2c.h:i2c_get_functionality(), and I2C_SMBUS, which
0201 performs an SMBus transaction using i2c-core-smbus.c:i2c_smbus_xfer().
0202
0203 The i2c-dev driver is responsible for checking all the parameters that
0204 come from user-space for validity. After this point, there is no
0205 difference between these calls that came from user-space through i2c-dev
0206 and calls that would have been performed by kernel I2C chip drivers
0207 directly. This means that I2C bus drivers don't need to implement
0208 anything special to support access from user-space.
0209
0210 5) These i2c.h functions are wrappers to the actual implementation of
0211 your I2C bus driver. Each adapter must declare callback functions
0212 implementing these standard calls. i2c.h:i2c_get_functionality() calls
0213 i2c_adapter.algo->functionality(), while
0214 i2c-core-smbus.c:i2c_smbus_xfer() calls either
0215 adapter.algo->smbus_xfer() if it is implemented, or if not,
0216 i2c-core-smbus.c:i2c_smbus_xfer_emulated() which in turn calls
0217 i2c_adapter.algo->master_xfer().
0218
0219 After your I2C bus driver has processed these requests, execution runs
0220 up the call chain, with almost no processing done, except by i2c-dev to
0221 package the returned data, if any, in suitable format for the ioctl.