G'Day,

This is probably a pretty simple question, but I was not quite sure of the answer. In brief, can you write an interrupt routine in user space?

I have a bit of hardware (1-wire interface) that, due to a bug, must be interrupt driven; if possible I would like to have my user-space program (alone) transmit data, wait for an interrupt, then request data, interrupt, etc. All the routine would need to do is set a gobal variable or something --- it is so that I know the transfer is complete.

If it is not possible, I shall have to look into how I can do something else from kernel; if it is possible, any basic advice (or useful reading) would be appreciated.

I'm not an expert, but I believe the short answer is no.
Signals are definitely kernel-level programming.
Every other OS I have programmed has required system level programming to create a true interrupt.
Apparently the following book is quite good for Linux hardware programming, our lab was able to write a couple of device drivers using it.

Title: Linux Device Drivers
Author: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Greg Kroah-Hartman
Format: Trade Paperback · Published: February 2005
Dimensions: 608 Pages, 7 x 9 in
ISBN: 0596005903 · Published by O'reilly

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply!

I was afraid that may be the answer, but I was kind of hoping I may be able to take the easy way out. The last time I wrote an interrupt routine, I could include it in my standard program... but that chip did not have an OS, so there was no other way to do it It will take longer like this, but I imagine the end product *would* be better: thanks again!