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Driver Services Library

The native driver framework includes a Driver Services Library (DSL) that supplies the driver services required by most generic drivers. Driver services are described in Separation of Application and Driver Services. The driver loader links the DSL automatically to each generic driver at load time. Mac OS may provide additional services to drivers in certain families or categories.

The types of services represented in the Driver Services Library include

• request processing services
• memory management services
• interrupt management services
• secondary interrupt handlers
• atomic operation services
• timing services
• operating system utilities

The calls supplied by the DSL and the family support libraries constitute the complete set of services provided to device drivers. The calls in the DSL are the only driver interfaces guaranteed to be maintained in subsequent releases of Mac OS. Calls to services outside of the DSL and the family support libraries (for example, calls to Toolbox traps, low-memory globals, and similar vectors) will result in driver failure.