Linux device drivers...
Ron Peterson
rpeterson at yellowbank.com
Thu Feb 24 13:09:48 EST 2000
"Kevin M. Gleason" wrote:
>
> I'm a little unclear on theory between the two devices. Would a
> character device
> be something like the keyboard (passing one char at a time) as
> opposed to block (that uses a buffer then passes the contents of the
> buffer)?
> I have no idea how you would use a pipe in this context.
Character devices are used for sequential data access. Block devices,
sometimes called "random access devices", allow you to access data
out-of-order. You might start reading a file in the middle, for
example. Storage devices are typically block devices.
I don't understand the pipe question.
-Ron-
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