makedev(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ATTRIBUTES | VERSIONS | STANDARDS | HISTORY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

makedev(3)              Library Functions Manual              makedev(3)

NAME         top

       makedev, major, minor - manage a device number

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <sys/sysmacros.h>

       dev_t makedev(unsigned int maj, unsigned int min);

       unsigned int major(dev_t dev);
       unsigned int minor(dev_t dev);

DESCRIPTION         top

       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).

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       ┌─────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │ Interface                           Attribute     Value   │
       ├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │ makedev(), major(), minor()         │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └─────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

VERSIONS         top

       The BSDs expose the definitions for these macros via
       <sys/types.h>.

STANDARDS         top

       None.

HISTORY         top

       BSD, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, Irix.

       These interfaces are defined as macros.  Since glibc 2.3.3, they
       have been aliases for three GNU-specific functions:
       gnu_dev_makedev(), gnu_dev_major(), and gnu_dev_minor().  The
       latter names are exported, but the traditional names are more
       portable.

       Depending on the version, glibc also exposes definitions for
       these macros from <sys/types.h> if suitable feature test macros
       are defined.  However, this behavior was deprecated in glibc
       2.25, and since glibc 2.28, <sys/types.h> no longer provides
       these definitions.

SEE ALSO         top

       mknod(2), stat(2)

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                     makedev(3)

Pages that refer to this page: mknod(2)dev_t(3type)stat(3type)udev_device_new_from_syspath(3)