IEEE 1284 transfer modes

Stacked on top of the sharing mechanism, but still in the parport module, are functions for transferring data. They are provided for the device drivers to use, and are very much like library routines. Since these transfer functions are provided by the generic parport core they must use the "lowest common denominator" set of access functions: they can set the control lines, examine the status lines, and use the data lines. With some parallel ports the data lines can only be set and not examined, and with other ports accessing the data register causes control line activity; with these types of situations, the IEEE 1284 transfer functions make a best effort attempt to do the right thing. In some cases, it is not physically possible to use particular IEEE 1284 transfer modes.

The low-level parport drivers also provide IEEE 1284 transfer functions, as names in the access function list. The low-level driver can just name the generic IEEE 1284 transfer functions for this. Some parallel ports can do IEEE 1284 transfers in hardware; for those ports, the low-level driver can provide functions to utilise that feature.