Preface

This document describes the architecture of, and internal interfaces to, the XIL library. It describes the library's C++ classes and discusses the mechanism for acceleration and porting of new hardware. The functionality of the XIL library is discussed in the documents XIL Programmer's Guide and XIL Reference Manual.

Who Should Use This Book

This book is designed for people porting hardware to use the XIL imaging library, as well as for people who are writing additional device-independent acceleration code for XIL functions.

Before You Read This Book

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with C++ and the ideas of classes and class inheritance in C++. It is further assumed that the reader has studied the XIL Programmer's Guide to become familiar with the capabilities of the XIL library.

What's in This Book?

Chapter 1, "Overview" provides an overview of the XIL library and describes the device-independent classes used to implement the library.

Chapter 2, "More on Writing Device Handlers" provides general information about writing XIL device handlers.

Chapter 3, "I/O Devices" describes how to write I/O device handlers and provides an example implementation of an I/O device handler.

Chapter 4, "Compute Devices" describes how to write compute device handlers and provides an example implementation of a compute device handler.

Chapter 5, "Storage Devices" describes how to write storage device handlers and provides an example implementation of a storage device handler.

Chapter 6, "Compression/Decompression" describes how to add a new compression method and compression hardware, and provides an example implementation of a compressor.

Appendix A, "Sample Molecule" provides an example that illustrates a molecule for performing 16-to-8 bit remapping of memory images.

Appendix B, "XIL Atomic Functions" provides the name of the function that must be supplied in the XILCONFIG header comment to associate an implemented function with an API call.

Appendix C, "XilOp Object" lists the number of image sources supported by an XIL function and the XilOp member functions that must be used to extract the image sources and to extract an XIL function's parameters from the XilOp object.

Related Books

XIL Reference Manual

XIL Programmer's Guide

XIL Test Suite User's Guide

What Typographic Changes and Symbols Mean

The following table describes the type changes and symbols used in this book.

Table P-1

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files. system% You have mail.
AaBbCc123	What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output	system%su Password:
AaBbCc123	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	To delete a file, type rm filename.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new words or terms, or words to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.
Code samples are included in boxes and may display the following:
%	UNIX C shell prompt	system%
$	UNIX Bourne and Korn shell prompt	system$
#	Superuser prompt, all shells	system#

XIL DDK Directory Structure

The default installation directory for the XIL DDK (Driver Developer Kit) is /opt/SUNWddk/ddk_2.4/xil. The structure of the XIL DDK directories is described in Figure P-1 and in the sections that follow.

Figure P-1

src/

The src directory contains seven subdirectories of examples; six of these examples are described in this manual: cg6_device_handler, compressor, compute_device_handler, io_device_handler, molecule, and storage_device_handler.

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Note - The directory src/cg6_device_handler contains an example I/O device handler that treats a SPARC GX frame-buffer window as an I/O device. The directory src/p9000, which isn't discussed in this manual, contains an example for an x86-specific module that is based on the SPARC GX example: it treats a p9000 frame-buffer window as an I/O device. The p9000 example isn't discussed in this manual because the p9000 architecture is similar to the CG6 architecture. The p9000 code is included to demonstrate some of the differences you can expect when writing an XIL module for x86.

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The src/doc directory contains a source (.po) file used for generating error messages.

Xilch/

The Xilch directory contains the files for the XIL Test Suite, including executables, data files, and examples. The XIL Test Suite is described in the XIL Test Suite User's Guide.