minor number -- Definition

Device numbering

A minor  number specifies the  device or type  of device to  use.  COHERENT
uses the minor  number of a given device in  a driver-specific manner.  For
example, a hard-disk driver may use the minor number to select a disk drive
and partition.

Every COHERENT  device has a  device number associated  with it.  It  is of
type  dev_t,  as  defined  in  <sys/types.h>.  The macro  minor()  in
<sys/stat.h> extracts the minor number from a given device number.


See Also

device drivers,
major number,
stat.h

© 2012 by Stephen A. Ness