Development Plan Proposal for Unifying Interrupt and PCI APIs

[Thomas Doerfler]

Chris,

> 
> Take the case where a device is generating interrupts very quickly, and a 
> device sharing that interrupt line generating interrupts more slowly.
> 
> If the first device handler services the interrupt, then returns with the code 
> which says an interrupt was serviced, and so the next handler is not polled.
> If the second device is actually generating an interrupt, the interrupt 
> handler will be called again.  If in the intervening span of time, the first 
> device also signals an interrupt again, the first device will again be 
> serviced, and the second device will not.
> 
> That may be desired behavior, but it needs to be documented very clearly.

Surely you are right.

But let's connect the same devices to different interrupt levels 
(say on a m68k architecture), your "first" device connected to a 
higher interrupt level (let's say 5) and the second one to a 
lower level (let's say 4).

Both devices fire an interrupt at the same time. Due to higher 
priority, the first device will be serviced first. When it fires 
again at the end of its service routine, it will be serviced 
once again, even before the second one gets serviced for its 
first request. That's why this is called a priorized scheme. The 
chained shared interrupt scheme I described has quite similar 
priorization effects.

Would it make sense to have a selection option between "priority 
scheme" (when the first handler of a given interrupt line has 
been found whose device has fired an interrupt) further handler 
polling will be ommitted, or a "equal priority" scheme (anybody 
has a better name for that?) where the polling will always be 
executed for all handlers attached to a certain interrupt line?

Thomas.

> -- 
> Chris Caudle

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