linux-IllusionX/Documentation/time_interpolators.txt
Linus Torvalds 1da177e4c3 Linux-2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.

Let it rip!
2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00

41 lines
1.4 KiB
Text

Time Interpolators
------------------
Time interpolators are a base of time calculation between timer ticks and
allow an accurate determination of time down to the accuracy of the time
source in nanoseconds.
The architecture specific code typically provides gettimeofday and
settimeofday under Linux. The time interpolator provides both if an arch
defines CONFIG_TIME_INTERPOLATION. The arch still must set up timer tick
operations and call the necessary functions to advance the clock.
With the time interpolator a standardized interface exists for time
interpolation between ticks. The provided logic is highly scalable
and has been tested in SMP situations of up to 512 CPUs.
If CONFIG_TIME_INTERPOLATION is defined then the architecture specific code
(or the device drivers - like HPET) may register time interpolators.
These are typically defined in the following way:
static struct time_interpolator my_interpolator {
.frequency = MY_FREQUENCY,
.source = TIME_SOURCE_MMIO32,
.shift = 8, /* scaling for higher accuracy */
.drift = -1, /* Unknown drift */
.jitter = 0 /* time source is stable */
};
void time_init(void)
{
....
/* Initialization of the timer *.
my_interpolator.address = &my_timer;
register_time_interpolator(&my_interpolator);
....
}
For more details see include/linux/timex.h and kernel/timer.c.
Christoph Lameter <christoph@lameter.com>, October 31, 2004