centos man page for device_initialize

DEVICE_INITIALIZE(9)					   Device drivers infrastructure				      DEVICE_INITIALIZE(9)

NAME
       device_initialize - init device structure.

SYNOPSIS
       void device_initialize(struct device * dev);

ARGUMENTS
       dev
	   device.

DESCRIPTION
       This prepares the device for use by other layers by initializing its fields. It is the first half of device_register, if called by that
       function, though it can also be called separately, so one may use dev's fields. In particular, get_device/put_device may be used for
       reference counting of dev after calling this function.

       All fields in dev must be initialized by the caller to 0, except for those explicitly set to some other value. The simplest approach is to
       use kzalloc to allocate the structure containing dev.

NOTE
       Use put_device to give up your reference instead of freeing dev directly once you have called this function.

COPYRIGHT
Kernel Hackers Manual 3.10					     June 2014						      DEVICE_INITIALIZE(9)