User level Parport Library
==========================
This directory contains  the sources for the parport library. The code has been
ported from the kernel inorder to maintain the parport module architecture for
the lp driver. The kernel modules have been replaced by a library at the user
level. The library is reusable for any other parallel port device driver.

Parport forms the main library which registers parport_pc. The client driver
such as the lp driver registers with the parport module and interacts with the
parport interface only. The parport module inturn implements each of the funtions
in the interface using the parport_pc module that registers with it. The 
parport_pc module can be replaced with another that does the same function on
some other parallel port hardware.

The module init functions of the parport and parport_pc modules have been 
replaced by an initialization and a cleanup function respectively. The parport_init
function is called by the client driver to initialize the parport module. This
function inturn calls the parport_pc_init function to initialize the parport_pc module
and register it with the parport module. The cleanup functions follows a similar 
pattern except that parport_pc unregisters from the parport module. 

Another change made is that since each user level device driver that uses parport 
library has a separate copy of the library, we have onlt one client talking to
a parport_pc module. Therefore the code for multiplexing multiple clients on
a single parport_pc module has been removed from the code ported from the kernel.
More precisely parport_claim and parport_release functions have been removed.

The rest of the code remains as it is except for some minor changes such as
the module parameters have been replaced by arguments to the initialization
function, etc.

Again the make utility serves for building all the files and constructing the
parport library that has both the parport and the parport_pc modules.

The contents of the directory:
=============================
- Makefile      	:make file for building the parport library
- README        	:this file 
- parport.h		:Contains data structure definitions and function declarations of parport module
- parport.c		:Contains implementation of the parport interface functions
- parport_pc.h		:Contains declarations of functions implemented by parport_pc module
- parport_pc.c		:Contains implementation of functions of the parport_pc module
- parport_probe.c	:Contains functions used for probing the parallel port
- parport_ieee1284.c	:Contains functions that check if the device attached to the parallel port
			 support ieee1284 standard
