NAME
makedev, major, minor - manage a device number
SYNOPSIS
#define _BSD_SOURCE
#include <sys/types.h>
dev_t makedev(int maj, int min);
int major(dev_t dev);
int minor(dev_t dev);
DESCRIPTION
A device ID consists of two parts: a major ID, identifying the class of
the device, and a minor ID, identifying a specific instance of a device
in that class. A device ID is represented using the type dev_t.
Given major and minor device IDs, makedev() combines these to produce a
device ID, returned as the function result. This device ID can be
given to mknod(2), for example.
The major() and minor() functions perform the converse task: given a
device ID, they return, respectively, the major and minor components.
These macros can be useful to, for example, decompose the device IDs in
the structure returned by stat(2).
CONFORMING TO
The makedev() major() and minor() functions are not specified in
POSIX.1, but are present on many other systems.
NOTES
These interfaces are defined as macros. Since glibc 2.3.3, they have
been aliases for three GNU-specific functions: gnu_dev_makedev(3),
gnu_dev_major(3), and gnu_dev_minor(3). The latter names are exported,
but the traditional names are more portable.
SEE ALSO
mknod(2), stat(2)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.