refcounting drivers' data structures used in sysfs buffers

Oliver Neukum
2007-03-08T13:05:06Z

Hi,

after a lightning bolt from high above I've been looking into refcounting
the data structures drivers use to provide the data used to refill sysfs
buffers. I've come to the following conclusion.

1. struct sysfs_buffer must have a struct kref * and probably a destructor
pointer
2. drivers must be able to pass these pointers through an extended
device_create_file()
3. Drivers must use refcounting if they want to use attributes
4. read/write/poll must do refcounting

I am not sure where to store the pointers. struct sysfs_dirent() looks
like the obvious choice. Comments?

Regards
Oliver