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Programming a Device for an I/O Operation

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Use the following general guidelines for designing, writing, and calling SynchCritSection routines that program a device for I/O operations:

  • A SynchCritSection routine that programs the device for I/O operations must return control as quickly as possible.

    For this reason, the SynchCritSection routine should do only what is necessary to set up the device for I/O. Therefore, the driver should perform all IRP preprocessing, initializing state information for other driver routines, and acquiring hardware resources before it calls the SynchCritSection routine.

  • A device driver can have multiple SynchCritSection routines to program the device.

    For example, the driver of a device for which setting up a read request differs markedly from setting up certain device control requests might have separate SynchCritSection routines to program its device for each type of request.

  • Every SynchCritSection routine must return control as quickly as possible, because running any SynchCritSection routine prevents the driver's ISR from executing.

    You should not write a single, large, general-purpose SynchCritSection routine with a switch statement or many nested if..then..else statements to determine what operations it will carry out or what state information to update. On the other hand, you should avoid writing numerous SynchCritSection routines that program only a single device register.