opensolaris man page for ddi_get_instance

ddi_get_instance(9F)					   Kernel Functions for Drivers 				      ddi_get_instance(9F)

NAME
       ddi_get_instance - get device instance number

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/ddi.h>
       #include <sys/sunddi.h>

       int ddi_get_instance(dev_info_t *dip);

INTERFACE LEVEL
       Solaris DDI specific (Solaris DDI).

PARAMETERS
       dip    Pointer to dev_info structure.

DESCRIPTION
       The ddi_get_instance() function returns the instance number of the device corresponding to dip.

       The  system  assigns  an instance number to every device.  Instance numbers  for devices attached to the same driver are unique.  This pro-
       vides a way for the system and the driver to uniquely identify one or more devices of the same type. The instance number is derived by  the
       system from different properties for different device types in an implementation specific manner.

       Once  an  instance  number  has	been  assigned	to  a device, it will remain the same even across reconfigurations and reboots. Therefore,
       instance numbers seen by a driver may not appear to be in consecutive order. For example, if device foo0 has been assigned an instance num-
       ber  of	0 and device foo1 has been assigned an instance number of 1, if foo0 is removed, foo1 will continue to be associated with instance
       number 1 (even though foo1 is now the only device of its type on the system).

RETURN VALUES
       The ddi_get_instance() function returns the instance number of the device corresponding to dip.

CONTEXT
       The ddi_get_instance() function can be called from user, interrupt, or kernel context.

SEE ALSO
       path_to_inst(4)

       Writing Device Drivers

SunOS 5.11							    16 Jan 2006 					      ddi_get_instance(9F)