Re: Lots of easy questions about drivers/linking

From: Steve Maillet \(eMVP\) (nospam1_at_EntelechyConsulting.com)
Date: 03/11/04 

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 21:35:23 -0500

You can't replace a driver that is currently in use without invalidating the
open handles to the driver. You can have all applications close all open
handles and then unload the driver. However if it's built into the main
image BIN file you would need to update the entire thing to update the
driver. If however it is on a storage device like a disk or Flash media then
you can just copy in the new one and re-load the driver. without shutting
down.

I've worked with a whole lot of RTOS systems over the years and I've never
found one that lets you do much in the way of updating XIP areas on the fly.
That being said CE does have the ability to do that to a certain extent. You
can create MULTIPLE XIP regions and using the BINFS file system unload the
entire file system for the region containing your driver and then re-write
that portion of flash and reload it again. I've never actually tested if
that will all work. The BINFS is normally used for updating the OS from a
special boot loader so the unload/load isn't a factor in that scenario. At
the moment I can't think of any reasons why it wouldn't work but there may
be some. 

-- 
Steve Maillet (eMVP)
Entelechy Consulting
smaillet_AT_EntelechyConsulting_DOT_com

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