what is the sense of distinguishing read/write/ioctl in device io?
why bother with read/write?

both linux and windows have this problem.
under windows, everything is accomplished by IRP requests.

why not define 'standard read' for ioctl code XX, standard write for code YY, and so on?

it would simplify kernel vrey much!

ok under windows they must maintain backward compatibility, but linux? why this isnt changed?

yep.

for me the problem is not given.

i have two types of functions:
f.disk
f.disk use only a bios compatible code to say, read, or write.

f.DOSfile
f.DOSfile is separated for the moment, f.read and f.save.
both use the same parameter structure, then, i just have to change call pointer and have a read, or a write.

maybe the differenciation between R/W is because it is completely a different operation.

as an analogy, take a book, read it
or write it... what is the harder to do?
for machine it is the same, read is easy and not dangerous.
write is.

im talking about exactly same processing of it.

in windows, driver has DispatchXXX functions wich handle IRPs. write/read/ioctl is the same irp! only code differ, so dispatch function also must be diffrent.

why not make it only ioctl, and in ioctl handler lookup table to just jump to proper handler?

its few instructions more, and makes things much simplier.

you can do it.

you should define an api for your "IOCTL" function that brings the possibility to support both R and W.