Re: Report ID problem with HID-RAW interface usage

[Xiaofan Chen <xiaofanc@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz> wrote:

>> Sorry I do not know much about hidraw. However, if HIDraw is so
>> "raw", what are the benefits of HIDRAW compared to using libusb?
>
> It's independent on transport below HID protocol. I.e. it works for
> Bluetooth HID devices as well (and any potential HID devices over
> different transport protocol that might come in the future).

Thanks. This makes sense.

>> Then there is also libhid which is on top of libusb.
>
> Which is basically comparable to hiddev -- i.e. USB only, and performs
> report processing and parsing.
>

Some of us in the libusb mailing list have this desire to
create a real cross-platform HID API (which libhid is
trying to do but without real success -- at least under
Windows since there is no real Windows port) on top
of libusb-1.0.

The new libusb-1.0 Windows backend can directly
use the native HID API. And I create a ticket to ask
for a native HID backend for Mac OS X and I believe
it can be done.
http://www.libusb.org/ticket/33

I am not so sure if it is necessary to create a native hidraw
backend for Linux or not. But the advantage of transport-independent
HID device seems to be a good one. I think Windows native HID API
also support non-USB device. Not so sure about Mac OS X though
since I do not use Mac and do not know Mac.

-- 
Xiaofan