USB_ALLOC_COHERENT

Section: USB Core APIs (9)
Updated: February 2011
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NAME

usb_alloc_coherent - allocate dma-consistent buffer for URB_NO_xxx_DMA_MAP  

SYNOPSIS

void * usb_alloc_coherent(struct usb_device * dev, size_t size, gfp_t mem_flags, dma_addr_t * dma);
 

ARGUMENTS

dev

device the buffer will be used with

size

requested buffer size

mem_flags

affect whether allocation may block

dma

used to return DMA address of buffer
 

DESCRIPTION

Return value is either null (indicating no buffer could be allocated), or the cpu-space pointer to a buffer that may be used to perform DMA to the specified device. Such cpu-space buffers are returned along with the DMA address (through the pointer provided).

These buffers are used with URB_NO_xxx_DMA_MAP set in urb->transfer_flags to avoid behaviors like using lqDMA bounce buffersrq, or thrashing IOMMU hardware during URB completion/resubmit. The implementation varies between platforms, depending on details of how DMA will work to this device. Using these buffers also eliminates cacheline sharing problems on architectures where CPU caches are not DMA-coherent. On systems without bus-snooping caches, these buffers are uncached.

When the buffer is no longer used, free it with usb_free_coherent.  

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