Run time generation and functionality validation of device drivers
Contents
1. 514 ASOIN3MW 3O9IA3G Sdd LOVHLX3 US 2014 0075053 A1 Mar 13 2014 Sheet 6 of 9 Patent Application Publication lHOd3MW 5 ALVYANAS NOI LVGQITVA ALITVND OG Or SIs 927 AO 1d3a ON SHOWW 31 VGl TVA3H LOAYYOO OLNV LdIN3 LLV r aa1938802 ATIVANVA 139 SHA oer 8er Patent Application Publication Mar 13 2014 Sheet 7 of 9 US 2014 0075053 DYNAMICALLY QUERYING A HARDWARE DEVICE FORA DEVICE PROGRAMMING SPECIFICATION DYNAMICALLY QUERYING RUN TIME ENVIRONMENT FOR A RUN TIME SPECIFICATION 504 OBTAINING THE DEVICE PROGRAMMING SPECIFICATION THAT IS SPECIFIC TO THE HARDWARE 506 DEVICE OBTAINING THE RUN TIME SPECIFICATION THAT IS SPECIFIC TO THE HARDWARE DEVICE 508 DYNAMICALLY SYNTHESIZING A DEVICE DRIVER TO OBTAIN A SYNTHESIZED DEVICE DRIVER 510 TESTING THE SYNTHESIZED DEVICE DRIVER BASED ON 912 A DEVICE CLASS OF THE HARDWARE DEVICE EVALUATING A PERFORMANCE OF THE SYNTHESIZED DRIVER WITH RESPECT TO STANDARD PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS FOR THE DEVICE CLASS OF THE 514 HARDWARE DEVICE FOR VALIDATING THE SYNTHESIZED DEVICE DRIVER FIG 5 Patent Application Publication Mar 13 2014 Sheet 8 of 9 US 2014 0075053 OR 610 0 0 Q O x B FIG 6 US 2014 0075053 A1 Mar 13 2014 Sheet 9 of 9 Patent Application Publication 1 914 22. Similarly the device driver generation tool queries the RTE for the RTS as shown in FIG 3A Upon obtaining the DPS and the RTS the device driver generation tool 104 then generates the device driver for the network device 110 validates deploys the device driver and generates reports 0035 FIG 4A through FIG 4C is a flow chart illustrating a method of generating a device driver for a hardware device and testing the device driver for functionality on the comput ing device 102 using the device driver generation tool 104 of FIG 1A 1C according to an embodiment herein In step 402 boot code for a computing device is activated In step 404 check whether the hardware device is a primary network device If the hardware device is the primary network device then it is checked whether a device program specification DPS anda run time specification RTS are available locally on the computing device 102 in step 406 If the DPS and the RTS are not available locally on the computing device 102 a user associated with the computing device 102 is informed about the location of the DPS and if required RTS in step 408 In one embodiment the device driver generation tool prompts the user the location ofthe DPS and the RTS and how to obtain the externally stored DPS and or RTS 0036 In step 410 the device driver is generated and syn thesized for the hardware device based on the DPS and the RTS In one embodiment the device driver generation
3. a hardware device and software environment embedded in the hardware device The embodiments herein achieve this by providing a device driver generation tool generates synthesizes and deploys the device driver During the synthesis deployment phase the device driver is validated by attempting for auto correction to identify and fix the errors The ability of the device driver generation tool to attempt for auto correction eliminates to some basic level the need of user intervention to correct any errors The device driver generation tool further generates report indicating a quality of the device driver The user gets user manual regard ing the APIs provided by the device driver thus helping out in application development This tool eases the process both in terms of effort and time for porting operating systems on a platform since now the porting has to be done only for the processor and all the drivers will be automatically generated Referring now to the drawings and more particularly to FIGS 1A through FIG 7 where similar reference characters denote corresponding features consistently throughout the figures there are shown preferred embodiments 0028 FIG 1A through FIG illustrates a block diagram for generating a device driver for an existing hardware device which is not the primary network device of the computing device according to an embodiment herein The block dia gram includes a computing device 102 having a device driv
4. as key to search in the database 0044 In one embodiment the synthesized device driver is regenerated until no further errors are detected For example when the test fails for the synthesized device driver the syn thesized device driver is regenerated with access to standard observation debug points which are not usual device regis ters The standard observation debug points may allow the driver access and display a actual signal values status at vari ous pins and buses in the computing device what is the signal value at the interrupt pin s of the device 0045 In one embodiment a quality of the synthesized device driver is evaluated based on one or more 1 a size of instructions associated with the device programming specifi cation and the run time specification and ii performance of the instructions In one embodiment a quality report of the synthesized device driver that is specific to the hardware device is generated 0046 For example the device programming specification is obtained from the hardware device and the run time speci fication is obtained from the run time environment of the computing device when the device programming specifica tion is embed within the hardware device Similarly the run time specification is embed within the run time environment of the computing device 0047 In another example embodiment a device ID and a vendor ID that is specific to the hardware device is obtained A storage loc
5. driver generation tool 104 receives a device programming specification em bedded in the hardware device 106 by querying the hardware device 106 in one embodiment For example the device pro gramming specification DPS is embedded in the hardware device 106 when the hardware device 106 provides an inter Mar 13 2014 nal memory and one or more registers with one or more byte size each at predefined locations 0030 In one embodiment the hardware device 106 pro vides approximately 50 KB internal memory three registers of 4 bytes size each at offset 0 4 and 8 The register at location 0 may have 0x766C616273 as a default value The register at the offset 4 may have a size of the DPS file that is stored in the hardware device memory and then the register at offset 8 provide access to the internal memory containing a com pressed version of DPS In an example embodiment when the device driver generation tool 104 may first read register at offset 0 of the hardware device If the value read is 0x766C616273 the device driver generation tool 104 may read the value stored in the register at offset 4 to determine number of byte to be read for obtaining a complete DPS stored in the internal memory of the hardware device The device driver generation tool 104 may proceed to read the number of bytes read from register at offset 8 The device driver generation tool 104 may proceed to decrypt and uncompressed DPS may be generated 0031 Simila
6. terms of preferred embodiments those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments hereincan be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the appended claims What is claimed is 1 method of generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device said method comprising i dynamically querying said hardware device for a device programming specification ii dynamically querying a run time environment for a run time specification iii obtaining said device programming specification that is specific to said hardware device iv obtaining said run time specification that is specific to said hardware device and said run time environment v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by a device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver wherein said device driver is specific to said hardware device and is generated based on said device programming specification and said run time specifica tion vi automatically testing by said device driver generation tool said synthesized device driver based on a device class of said hardware device and vii automatically evaluating by said device driver gen eration tool a performance of said synthesized driver with respect to standard performance parameters for said device class of said hardware device for validating said synthesized device driver 2 The method of claim 1 further comprising regenerating said synthesized device d
7. vc if 22 co Tz 6L 1 4 uaravav ut AV 1dSId AISAN cl 2 NH 2 Fe 8r 9r PI 07 OF H3ldvav ON IOS H3ldvQv WOU WY x CES 2 2 gc MYOMLAN el US 2014 0075053 Al RUN TIME GENERATION AND FUNCTIONALITY VALIDATION OF DEVICE DRIVERS CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 0001 This application claims priority to Indian patent application no 3793 CHE 2012 filed on Sep 13 2013 the complete disclosure of which in its entirely is herein incor porated by reference BACKGROUND 0002 1 Technical Field 0003 The embodiments herein generally relate to device driver generation for a hardware device and more particu larly to a run time generation and functionality validation of device drivers using a high level descriptions of the hardware device and software environment that embedded in the hard ware device and a run time environment 0004 2 Description of the Related Art 0005 Typically any software running on a hardware plat form exercises the features of the hardware by way of device drivers A device driver generally refers to a software code group of software instructions which enables a computing device e g a computer system to interface with a hardware device e g a printer a modem a network controller card etc The device driver provides appropriate interfaces enabling various software modules e g user applications operating system componen
8. T for the fabrication of photolitho graphic masks which typically include multiple copies ofthe chip design in question that are to be formed on a wafer The photolithographic masks are utilized to define areas of the wafer and or the layers thereon to be etched or otherwise processed 0053 The resulting integrated circuit chips can be distrib uted by the fabricator in raw wafer form that is as a single wafer that has multiple unpackaged chips as a bare die or in a packaged form In the latter case the chip is mounted in a single chip package such as a plastic carrier with leads that are affixed to a motherboard or other higher level carrier or in a multichip package such as a ceramic carrier that has either or both surface interconnections or buried interconnections 0054 In any case the chip is then integrated with other chips discrete circuit elements and or other signal process ing devices as part of either a an intermediate content such as a motherboard or b an end content The end content can be any content that includes integrated circuit chips ranging from toys and other low end applications to advanced com puter contents having a display a keyboard or other input device and a central processor 0055 The embodiments herein can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment an entirely software embodi ment or an embodiment including both hardware and soft ware elements The embodiments that are implemen
9. US 20140075053A1 as United States Patent Application Publication Pub No US 2014 0075053 A1 Kolathur et al 43 Pub Date Mar 13 2014 54 RUN TIME GENERATION AND 52 U S Cl FUNCTIONALITY VALIDATION OF DEVICE G06F 9 4411 2013 01 DRIVERS USPC attese 710 10 71 Applicant Vayavya Labs Private Limited 57 ABSTRACT Belgaum IN A method of generating and validating a device driver for a 72 Inventors Venugopal Kolathur Belgaum IN hardware device is provided The method include 1 dynami Ravindragouda Kalagouda Patil cally querying the hardware device for a device programming Belgaum IN Parag Naik Bangalore specification ii dynamically querying a run time environ IN ment for a run time specification iii obtaining the device programming specification that is specific to the hardware 21 Appl No 14 026 270 device iv obtaining the run time specification that is specific 22 Filed 30 Foreign Application Priority Data Sep 13 2012 to the hardware device and the run time environment v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by a device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver vi automatically testing by the device driver generation tool the TROU 3793 CHE 2012 synthesized device driver based on a device class of the hard ware device and vii automatically evaluating by the device Sep 13 2013 Publication Classification driv
10. a tion and the run time specification The set of instructions may further include regenerating the synthesized device driver until no further errors are detected The set of instruc tions may further include evaluating a quality of the synthe sized device driver based on at least one of a a size of instructions associated with the device programming specifi cation and the run time specification and b a performance of the instructions The set of instructions may further include generating a quality report of the synthesized device driver that is specific to the hardware device The device program ming specification may be stored in the hardware device and the run time specification may be stored in the run time environment of the computing device The set of instructions may further include obtaining a storage location of a the device programming specification based on a device ID and a vendor ID that is specific to the hardware device which is obtained from a configuration file and b the run time speci fication based on the hardware device and the run time envi ronment 0014 The set of instructions may further include obtain ing a the device programming specification and b the run time specification from an external storage device that is communicating with the computing device The set of instructions may further include providing at least one uni form resource locator for downloading the device program ming specifica
11. age and cache memories which provide temporary stor age of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution 0059 Input output devices including but not limited to keyboards displays pointing devices etc can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I O con trollers Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks Modems cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters 0060 A representative hardware environment for practic ing the embodiments herein is depicted in FIG 7 This sche matic drawing illustrates a hardware configuration of an information handling computer system in accordance with the embodiments herein The system comprises at least one processor or central processing unit CPU 10 The CPUs 10 are interconnected via system bus 12 to various devices such as a random access memory RAM 14 read only memory ROM 16 and an input output I O adapter 18 The adapter 18 can connect to peripheral devices such as disk units 11 and tape drives 13 or other program storage devices that are readable by the system The system can read the inventive instructions on the program storage devices and
12. ation of a the device programming specifica tion and b the run time specification is obtained based on the device ID and the vendor ID that is specific to the hard ware device Then automatically the device programming specification and b the run time specification are obtained from an external storage device that is communicating with the computing device 0048 In one embodiment at least one uniform resource locator is provided for downloading the device programming specification In one embodiment the device programming specification and the run time specification are stored in at least one of 1 the computing device ii an external storage device that is connected to the computing device and iii a remote server that is in communication with the computing device 0049 FIG 6 illustrates a schematic diagram of the hard ware device 106 of FIG 1A 1C having an a memory 602 having a set of computer instructions a bus 604 a display 606 a speaker 608 and a processor 610 capable of processing a set of instructions to perform any one or more of the meth odologies herein according to an embodiment herein The processor 610 may also enable digital content to be consumed in the form of video for output via one or more displays 606 or audio for output via speaker and or earphones 608 The processor 610 may also carry out the methods described herein and in accordance with the embodiments herein 0050 Digital content may also be
13. ce driver may be manually corrected in step 434 and the step 420 may be performed In one embodiment if the device driver generation tool 104 detects any problems during the validation phase it will attempt to correct the problems and report the pass or failure of the device driver generation process Based on this report the user can then attempt to do any manual corrections and re run the device driver genera tion tool 104 based on a request received and or displayed on a display of the computing device 102 by the device driver generation tool 104 0041 FIG 5 is a flow chart illustrating a method of gen erating a device driver for the hardware device and testing the device driver for functionality on the computing device using the device driver generation tool of FIG 1A 1C according to an embodiment herein In step 502 a hardware device is dynamically queried for a device programming specification In one embodiment the device driver generation tool 104 queries the hardware device for the device programming specification In step 504 a run time environment is dynami cally queried fora run time specification In one embodiment the device driver generation tool 104 queries the run time environment for the run time specification In step 506 the device programming specification that is specific to the hard ware device is obtained In step 508 the run time specification that is specific to the hardware device is obtained 0042 In s
14. d generate 106 reports CONFIGURATION FILE 108 FIG 2C Patent Application Publication Mar 13 2014 Sheet 3 of 9 US 2014 0075053 e NETWORK DEVICE 110 Query RTE And extract RTS USER SYSTEM 102 o CONFIGURATION FILE FIG 3A Display URL of DPS stored on cloud a remote server and wait till user provides it NETWORK DEVICE OS RTE USER SYSTEM 110 102 408 CONFIGURATION FILE FIG 3B NETWORK DEVICE 110 OS RTE USER SYSTEM Generate driver compile validate deploy and generate reports 108 CONFIGURATION FILE FIG 3C US 2014 0075053 A1 Mar 13 2014 Sheet 4 of 9 Patent Application Publication Vr Sls 8 IWNYALXA IWNYALXA IWNYALNI 514 54 4 015 viv 90 514 1 08 ALY om 540 LNOV ON 3OIA3Gg SHA vOv MYOMLAN 3OIA3Q SI df LOO WALSAS NOILVAILOV 1 WALSAS 9 ASHL TILL SLY Qasinoas 4I dO NOILVOOT 1 8 YASN WHONI ATIVOOT 3 18V TIVAV SLY 34V 907 US 2014 0075053 A1 Mar 13 2014 Sheet 5 of 9 Patent Application Publication 3J9VHOLS IVNS3IX3 SLY Sdd SS390V ON 007 ei gr Sls JAYA 31VOr1TvA AJAYA AZISSHLNAS Olt 91 SHA
15. driver with respect to standard performance parameters for the device class of the hardware device for validating the synthesized device driver The computing device includes at least one of i an operating system and ii a run time environment The device driver is specific to the hardware device and is generated based on the device pro gramming specification and the run time specification 0016 In further aspect an embodiment herein provides a method of generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device The method includes 1 dynamically que Mar 13 2014 rying the hardware device for a device programming specifi cation 11 dynamically querying a run time environment for a run time specification iii obtaining the device program ming specification that is specific to the hardware device iv obtaining the run time specification that is specific to the hardware device and the run time environment and v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by a device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver 0017 These and other aspects of the embodiments herein will be better appreciated and understood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompa nying drawings It should be understood however that the following descriptions while indicating preferred embodi ments and numerous specific details thereof are given by way of illustration and not of limitation Many cha
16. e driver based on at least one of a a size of instructions associated with the device programming specifi cation and the run time specification and b a performance of the instructions The method may further include generating aquality report ofthe synthesized device driver that is specific to the hardware device The device programming specifica tion may be stored in the hardware device and the run time specification may be stored inthe runtime environment ofthe computing device 0010 The method may further include obtaining a device obtaining a storage location of a the device programming specification based on the device ID and the vendor ID that is specific to the hardware device and b the run time specifi cation based on the hardware device and the run time envi ronment The method may further include obtaining a the device programming specification and b the run time speci fication from an external storage device that is communicat ing with the computing device 0011 The method may further include providing at least one uniform resource locator for downloading the device programming specification The device programming speci fication and the run time specification may be stored in at least one of 1 the computing device ii the external storage device that is connected to the computing device and remote server that is in communication with the computing device 0012 In another aspect a system for
17. e programming specification based on a device ID anda vendor ID that is specific to said hardware device that are obtained from a configuration file and b said run time specification based on said hardware device and said run time environment 17 The system of claim 16 wherein said set of instructions further comprises obtaining a said device programming specification and b said run time specification from an external storage device that is in communication with said computing device 18 The system of claim 11 wherein said set of instructions further comprises providing at least one uniform resource locator for downloading said device programming specifica tion 19 The system of claim 11 wherein said device program ming specification and said run time specification are stored in at least one of i said computing device ii said external storage device that is connected to said computing device and iii a remote server that is in communication with said com puting device 20 A method of generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device said method comprising i activating a boot code for a computing device wherein said computing device comprises at least one of i an operating system and ii a run time environment ii obtaining a information associated with at least one hardware device that is connected to said computing device and b information associated with a hardware device for which a de
18. er generation tool 104 the hardware device 106 having a con figuration file 108 and a network device 110 The hardware device 106 is not a primary network device in one example embodiment The computing device 102 has an operating system or a run time environment RTE The DPS is not embedded in the hardware device 106 and the RTS is not present in the operating system e g the run time environ ment RTE in one example embodiment The user provides a configuration file that includes a device ID and a vendor ID The device driver generation tool 104 reads the configuration file as shown in FIG 1A and downloads an appropriate device programming specification DPS and run time speci fication RTS from the external storage as shown in FIG 1B The external storage may be on a dedicated server or stored ona cloud or on an external hard disk in one example In one embodiment the computing device 102 may be a smart phone a tablet PC a laptop a desktop and an ultra book The device driver generation tool 104 then generates the device driver for the existing hardware device validates deploys the device driver and generates reports as shown in FIG 1C 0029 2 through FIG 2C illustrates a block diagram for generating a device driver for the existing hardware device when the DPS is in the hardware device 106 and the RTS is in the RTE of the computing device 102 of FIG 1A 1C accord ing to an embodiment herein The device
19. er generation tool a performance of the synthesized 51 Int Cl GO6F 9 44 driver with respect to standard performance parameters for the device class of the hardware device for validating the 2006 01 synthesized device driver SYSTEM INIT BOOT CODE ACTIVATION SYSTEM BOOT UP 402 IS THE DEVICE PRIMARY NETWORK DEVICE ARE DPS AND RTS AVAILABLE LOCALLY 404 LOCATION OF DPS IF REQUIRED RTS AND TILL THEY ARE PROVIDED STORED DPS RTS INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL INTERNAL EXTERNAL Patent Application Publication Mar 13 2014 Sheet 1 of 9 US 2014 0075053 NETWORK T DEVICE HARDWARE DEVICE CONFIGURATION FILE OS RTE USER SYSTEM 106 NETWORK DEVICE OS RTE USER SYSTEM HARDWARE 1 DEVICE 102 CONFIGURATION 108 FILE FIG 1B 106 NETWORK DEVICE 110 OS RTE USER SYSTEM Generate driver compile validate deploy and generate reports HARDWARE DEVICE 106 102 CONFIGURATION FILE 108 FIG 1 Patent Application Publication Mar 13 2014 Sheet 2 of 9 US 2014 0075053 NETWORK 110 DEVICE Query device for DPS and extract HARDWARE DEVICE CONFIGURATION FILE DPS 108 106 FIG 2A 410 NETWORK Query RTE And DEVICE HARDWARE DEVICE extract RTS USER SYSTEM 106 104 102 CONFIGURATION 188 FILE FIG 2B NETWORK DEVICE Generate driver compile HARDWARE validate DEVICE deploy an
20. evice driver from the internet For example 0033 The device driver generation tool 104 queries the hardware device 106 for the DPS and extracts the DPS from the hardware device as shown in FIG 2A Similarly the device driver generation tool 104 queries the run time envi ronment RTE and extracts the run time specification RTS from the run time environment RTE as shown in FIG 2B The device driver generation tool 104 then generates the device driver for the existing hardware device validates deploys the device driver and generates reports as shown in FIG 2C 0034 FIG through FIG 3C illustrates a block diagram for generating a device driver for the primary network device 110 of FIG 1A 1C when the DPS is not available for the network device 110 according to an embodiment herein In one embodiment the device driver generation tool 104 que ries the network device 110 to obtain the device ID and vendor ID as shown in FIG 3A For example the network device 110 is a primary network device of the computing US 2014 0075053 Al device 102 Hence the device driver generation tool 104 cannot access and use the network device 110 to obtain the DPS However one or more URLs are displayed to the user from which the DPS be downloaded URL of the DPS stored on a remote server is displayed to the user as shown in FIG 3B The device driver generation tool 104 waits until the user provides the target location for the DPS
21. follow these instructions to execute the methodology of the embodiments herein 0061 The system further includes a user interface adapter 19 that connects a keyboard 15 mouse 17 speaker 24 micro phone 22 and or other user interface devices such as a touch screen device not shown to the bus 12 to gather user input Additionally a communication adapter 20 connects the bus 12 to a data processing network 25 and a display adapter 21 connects the bus 12 to a display device 23 which may be embodied as an output device such as a monitor printer or transmitter for example 0062 The device driver generation tool 104 eliminates the need to worry about getting driver written or synthesized externally by procuring a tool When the RTE boots up auto matically the driver gets synthesized and deployed During the synthesis deployment phase the device driver generation tool 104 attempts auto correction to fix any errors that are identified as part of device driver validation The device pro gramming specification DPS is embedded in the hardware device and the run time specification RTS is embedded in the run time environment Hence information needed for generating the device driver that is present in the operating system and in the hardware device This scenario enables an end user e g a customer or a person of ordinary skill in the art to generate a device driver for the hardware device 106 using the device driver generation tool 104
22. g said device programming specification 10 The method of claim 1 wherein said device program ming specification and said run time specification are stored in at least one of i said computing device ii said external storage device that is connected to said computing device and iii a remote server that is in communication with said com puting device 11 system for generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device said system comprising i a computing device that comprises a at least one of 1 an operating system and ii a run time environment b a device driver generation tool that generates said device driver for said hardware device c a memory unit that stores a a database and b a set of instructions and d a processor that executes said set of instructions comprising i dynamically querying said hardware device for a device programming specification ii dynamically querying a run time environment for a run time specification iii obtaining said device programming specification that is specific to said hardware device iv obtaining said run time specification that is spe cific to said hardware device and said run time environment v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by said device driver generation tool to obtain a synthe sized device driver wherein said device driver is specific to said hardware device and is generated based on said device programming specificati
23. generating and vali dating a device driver for a hardware device is provided The system include a computing device that include a at least one of 1 an operating system and 11 aruntime environment b a device driver generation tool that generates the device driver for the hardware device c a memory unit that stores a adatabase and b a set ofinstructions d a processor that executes the set of instructions include 1 dynamically querying the hardware device for a device programming specification 1 dynamically querying the run time environ ment for a run time specification ii1 obtaining the device programming specification that is specific to the hardware device iv obtaining the run time specification that is specific to the hardware device and the run time environment v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by the device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver vi automatically testing by the device driver generation tool the synthesized device driver based on a device class of the hard ware device and vii automatically evaluating by the device driver generation tool a performance of the synthesized US 2014 0075053 Al driver with respect to standard performance parameters for the device class of the hardware device for validating the synthesized device driver 0013 The device driver is specific to the hardware device and is generated based on the device programming specific
24. ice for a device programming specification 1 dynamically querying a run time environment for a run time specification iii obtaining said device programming specification that is specific to said hardware device iv obtaining said run time specification that is specific to said hardware device and said run time environment and v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by a device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver wherein said device driver is specific to said hardware device and is generated based on said device programming specification and said run time specifica tion
25. ly validates the functionality of the synthesized device driver by executing it on the hard ware device 106 to detect possible defects evaluates the device driver qualitatively in terms of size of code perfor mance of the code etc and performs a conformance test to Mar 13 2014 ensure that the device driver adheres to the conformance criteria as required by the RTE Operating system like that of WHQL 0039 In step 422 it is checked whether there are any errors in the device driver If there are no errors in the device driver then a quality check is performed and a report is generated in step 424 The report helps the application writer in using the device driver by providing information about the APIs provided by the device driver In step 426 the device driver is deployed If there are errors in the device driver the device driver generation tool attempts for auto correction in step 428 In step 430 the device driver generation tool revali dates the device driver after performing auto correction In one embodiment in case of error detection during validation the device driver generation tool 104 attempts for automatic error correction using standard observation debug points that have been already inserted in the hardware device 0040 In step 432 it is checked whether there are any more errors in the device driver If there are no errors in the device driver then the step 426 is performed Else if there are errors the devi
26. nges and modi fications may be made within the scope of the embodiments herein without departing from the spirit thereof and the embodiments herein include all such modifications BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0018 The embodiments herein will be better understood from the following detailed description with reference to the drawings in which 0019 FIG 1A through FIG illustrates a block diagram for generating a device driver for an existing hardware device according to an embodiment herein 0020 FIG 2A through FIG 2C illustrates a block diagram for generating a device driver for the existing hardware device when the device programming specification is in the hard ware device and a run time specification is in a run time environment of the computing device of FIG 1A 1C accord ing to an embodiment herein 0021 FIG 3A through FIG illustrates a block diagram for generating a device driver for the primary network device of FIG 1A 1C when the device programming specification is not available for the network device according to an embodi ment herein and 0022 FIG 4A through FIG 4C is a flow chart illustrating a method of generating a device driver for the hardware device and testing the device driver for functionality on the computing device using the device driver generation tool of FIG 1A 1C according to an embodiment herein 0023 FIG 5 is a flow chart illustrating a method of gen erating a device dri
27. on and said run time specification vi automatically testing by said device driver gen eration tool said synthesized device driver based on a device class of said hardware device and vii automatically evaluating by said device driver generation tool a performance of said synthesized driver with respect to standard performance param eters for said device class of said hardware device for validating said synthesized device driver 12 The system of claim 11 wherein said set of instructions further comprises regenerating said synthesized device driver until no further errors are detected 13 The system of claim 11 wherein said set of instructions further comprises evaluating a quality of said synthesized device driver based on at least one of a a size of instructions associated with said device programming specification and said run time specification and b a performance of said instructions Mar 13 2014 14 The system of claim 13 wherein said set of instructions further comprises generating a quality report of said synthe sized device driver that is specific to said hardware device 15 The system of claim 11 wherein said device program ming specification is stored in said hardware device and wherein said run time specification is stored in said run time environment of said computing device 16 The system of claim 11 wherein said set of instructions further comprises obtaining a storage location of a said devic
28. river until no further errors are detected 3 The method of claim 1 further comprising evaluating a quality of said synthesized device driver based on at least one of a a size of instructions associated with said device pro gramming specification and said run time specification and b a performance of said instructions 4 The method of claim 3 further comprising generating a quality report of said synthesized device driver that is specific to said hardware device 5 The method of claim 1 wherein said device program ming specification is stored in said hardware device and wherein said run time specification is stored in said run time environment of said computing device US 2014 0075053 Al 6 The method of claim 1 further comprising obtaining a device ID and a vendor ID that is specific to said hardware device 7 The method of claim 6 further comprising obtaining a storage location of a said device programming specification based on said device ID and said vendor ID that is specific to said hardware device and b said run time specification based on said hardware device and said run time environment 8 The method of claim 7 further comprising obtaining a said device programming specification and b said run time specification from an external storage device that is commu nicating with said computing device 9 The method of claim 1 further comprising providing at least one uniform resource locator for downloadin
29. rly the device driver generation tool 104 receives the run time specification embedded in the run time environment that is executed on the computing device 102 by querying the run time environment installed on the computing device 102 In one embodiment the run time specification may be embedded e g stored or bundled within the runtime environment e g an operating system during the produc tion process For example The operating system may have a specific directory at a root level of a file system e g In case of Al operating system is CAABC and in case of A2 operating system is C XXYZ The device driver generation tool 104 may consider a device id either by querying the hardware device 106 or by obtaining information from a configuration file The device driver generation tool 104 searches the ABC folder to check if an RTS corresponding to the device id is present in the directory If the RTS is present the device driver generation tool 104 may proceed to uncompress it Ifthe RTS is not present the device driver generation tool 104 may proceed to obtain from the internet either from a server or from the cloud and uncompress it 0032 This scenario enables an end user e g a customer or a person of ordinary skill in the art to generate a device driver for the hardware device 106 using the device driver generation tool 104 which may be executed in the computing device 102 This further eliminates the need of downloading the d
30. stored in the memory 602 for future processing or consumption The memory 6602 may also store program specific information and or service information PSI SI including information about digital content e g the detected information bits available in the future or stored from the past A user of the hardware device Mar 13 2014 106 may view this stored information on display 606 and select an item of for viewing listening or other uses via input which may take the form of keypad scroll or other input device s or combinations thereof When digital content is selected the processor 610 may pass information The con tent and PSI SI may be passed among functions within the hardware device 106 using the bus 604 0051 The techniques provided by the embodiments herein may be implemented on an integrated circuit chip not shown The chip design is created in a graphical computer programming language and stored in a computer storage medium such as a disk tape physical hard drive or virtual hard drive such as in a storage access network If the designer does not fabricate chips or the photolithographic masks used to fabricate chips the designer transmits the resulting design by physical means e g by providing a copy of the storage medium storing the design or electronically e g through the Internet to such entities directly or indirectly 0052 The stored design is then converted into the appro priate format GDSI
31. te device drivers for these various combi nations SUMMARY 0008 In view of the foregoing an embodiment herein provides a method of generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device The method includes 1 dynami cally querying the hardware device for a device programming specification 11 dynamically querying a run time environ ment for a run time specification 11 obtaining the device Mar 13 2014 programming specification that is specific to the hardware device iv obtaining the run time specification that is specific to the hardware device and the run time environment v dynamically synthesizing a device driver by a device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver vi automatically testing by the device driver generation tool the synthesized device driver by the device driver generation tool based on a device class of the hardware device and vii automatically evaluating a performance of the synthesized driver with respect to standard performance parameters for the device class of the hardware device for validating the synthesized device driver The device driver is specific to the hardware device and is generated based on the device pro gramming specification and the run time specification 0009 The method may further include regenerating the synthesized device driver until no further errors are detected The method may further include evaluating a quality of the synthesized devic
32. ted in software include but are not limited to firmware resident software microcode etc 0056 Furthermore the embodiments herein can take the form of a computer program content accessible from a com puter usable or computer readable medium providing pro gram code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system For the purposes of this description a computer usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can comprise store communicate propagate or transport the program for use by or in connec tion with the instruction execution system apparatus or device 0057 The medium be an electronic magnetic optical electromagnetic infrared or semiconductor system or appa ratus or device or a propagation medium Examples of a computer readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory magnetic tape a removable computer diskette a random access memory RAM a read only memory ROM a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk Current US 2014 0075053 Al examples of optical disks include compact disk read only memory CD ROM compact disk read write CD R W and DVD 0058 A data processing system suitable for storing and or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code bulk stor
33. tep 510 a device driver is dynamically synthe sized to obtain a synthesized device driver based on the device programming specification and the run time specification In step 512 the synthesized device driver is tested based on a device class of the hardware device For example the synthe sized device driver is deployed tested based on the device class e g enumeration and file copy for USB memory stor age device or ping for network device 0043 Instep 514 a performance ofthe synthesized device driver is evaluated with respect to standard performance parameters for the device class of the hardware device for validating the synthesized device driver For example perfor mance of the synthesized driver is evaluated using standard test suites and a report is generated The report may include standard expected performance for each device class and version USB 2 0 devices performance will be less that of USB 3 0 devices or in case of Ethernet cards a 100 Mbps device will performance will be less than that of a 1 Gbps device which in turn will perform worse than a 10 Gbps US 2014 0075053 Al device Hence the database may include expected perfor mance for each and every variation In one embodiment standard size of device driver for different device classes may be stored and the size of the synthesized device driver may be compared against the standard expected device driver size stored in a database using a device class and a device id
34. tion The device programming specification and the run time specification may be stored in at least one of i the computing device ii the external storage device that is connected to the computing device and iii a remote server that is in communication with the computing device 0015 In yet another aspect a method of generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device is provided The method include i activating a boot code for a computing device ii obtaining a information associated with at least one hardware device that is connected to the computing device and b information associated with a hardware device for which a device driver is not present in the run time envi ronment iii obtaining a device ID and a vendor ID from a configuration file iv obtaining a storage location of a a device programming specification and b a run time speci fication v dynamically querying i the hardware device for the device programming specification and 1 the run time environment for the run time specification v1 obtaining the device programming specification that is specific to the hard ware device vii obtaining the run time specification that is specific to the hardware device viii dynamically synthesiz ing a device driver to obtain a synthesized device driver ix testing the synthesized device driver based on a device class of the hardware device and x evaluating a performance of the synthesized
35. tool 104 dynamically synthesis the device driver by detecting and querying ofthe hardware device after RTE Operating system boot up If the DPS and RTS are available locally then the device driver is generated and synthesized for the hardware device based on the DPS and the RTS without having to perform the step 408 0037 If the hardware device is not the primary network device then the DPS are queried in the hardware device 106 and the RTS are queried in the run time environment RTE 104 in step 412 In one embodiment then the DPS and the RTS are dynamically queried for in the hardware device and in the run time environment RTE respectively In step 414 it is checked whether the DPS and the RTS are stored i internally in the hardware device or ii externally on a storage device or on a remote server If the DPS and the RTS are stored internally in the hardware device the DPS and the RTS are extracted in step 416 and the step 410 is performed If the DPS and or the RTS are stored externally on the storage device or on the remote server then the DPS and or the RTS are accessed from the storage device or from the remote server in step 418 and the step 410 is performed 0038 In step 420 the device driver is validated In one embodiment validation of the synthesized device driver is performed when the synthesized device driver is executed on the hardware device In one embodiment the device driver generation tool 104 automatical
36. ts etc executing in the comput ing device or hardware components in the computing device to communicate with and or to control the hardware device 0006 Device driver code is different for different comput ing devices generally due to differences in hardware and software characteristics among computing devices For example different operating systems or its absence may require different software codes for operation as a device driver in the corresponding computing devices Similarly having different hardware devices registers etc character istics may also require different software codes 0007 Device driver for a device is usually provided by one ofthe following means 1 sometimes written as part of appli cations 11 supplied as a standard component of an Operating System 111 written as a software component by a developer when he she has a reference hardware platform and the run time environment Typically device driver writers use the description ofthe device features that are usually provided in English This leads to ambiguity which results in quite a few to and fro between the hardware and software developers There are a large number of combinations of different com puting devices and operating environments hardware and software characteristics Since the information needed to write a device driver for a specific hardware device and or operating system typically has to be obtained manually it is cumbersome to wri
37. ver for the hardware device and testing the device driver for functionality on the computing device using the device driver generation tool of FIG 1A 1C according to an embodiment herein 0024 FIG 6 illustrates a schematic diagram of the hard ware device of FIG 1A 1C to perform any one or more of the methodologies herein according to an embodiment herein and 0025 FIG 7 illustrates a schematic diagram of a computer architecture used in accordance with the embodiments herein DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 0026 The embodiments herein and the various features and advantageous details thereof are explained more fully with reference to the non limiting embodiments that are illus trated in the accompanying drawings and detailed in the fol lowing description Descriptions of well known components and processing techniques are omitted so as to not unneces US 2014 0075053 Al sarily obscure the embodiments herein The examples used herein are intended merely to facilitate an understanding of ways in which the embodiments herein may be practiced and to further enable those of skill in the art to practice the embodiments herein Accordingly the examples should not be construed as limiting the scope of the embodiments herein 0027 As mentioned there remains a need for a device driver generation tool to generate a device driver and test the device driver for functionality on the go using a high level description of
38. vice driver is not present in said run time environment 11 obtaining a device ID and a vendor ID from con figuration file iv obtaining a storage location of a a device program ming specification and b a run time specification v dynamically querying i said hardware device for said device programming specification and ii said run time environment for said run time specification vi obtaining said device programming specification that is specific to said hardware device vii obtaining said run time specification that is specific to said hardware device and said run time environment viii dynamically synthesizing a device driver by a device driver generation tool to obtain a synthesized device driver wherein said device driver is specific to said hardware device and is generated based on said device programming specification and said run time specifica tion ix testing by said device driver generation tool said synthesized device driver based on a device class of said hardware device and x evaluating by said device driver generation tool a performance of said synthesized driver with respect to standard performance parameters for said device class of said hardware device for validating said synthesized device driver US 2014 0075053 Al Mar 13 2014 21 A method of generating and validating a device driver for a hardware device said method comprising 1 dynamically querying said hardware dev
39. which may be executed in the computing device 102 This further elimi nates the need of downloading the device driver from the internet The ability of the device driver generation tool to attempt for auto correction eliminates the need of user inter Mar 13 2014 vention to correct any errors or may provide an indication to manually correct the errors The device driver generation tool further generates report indicating a quality of the device driver The user gets user manual regarding the APIs provided by the device driver thus helping out in application develop ment This tool eases the process both in terms of effort and time for porting operating systems on a platform since now the porting has to be done only for the processor and all the drivers will be automatically generated 0063 The foregoing description of the specific embodi ments will so fully reveal the general nature of the embodi ments herein that others can by applying current knowledge readily modify and or adapt for various applications such specific embodiments without departing from the generic concept and therefore such adaptations and modifications should and are intended to be comprehended within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodi ments It is to be understood that the phraseology or termi nology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation Therefore while the embodiments herein have been described in
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search