Raw access to block devices

["Roy S.C. Ho" <scho1208@yahoo.com>]

Dear all,

I would like to write a driver for a block device that
is better to be accessed directly without going
through the buffer cache. I read the source code raw.c
and learnt that linux does have raw I/O support.
However, it seems to me that the support only provides
a character device interface to users. Is there a
simple way to maintain the block device interface to
user programs / other parts of the kernel, while
bypassing the buffer cache system?

Since struct block_device_operations does not include
read or write operations, I have considered to
redirect the function pointers in filp->f_op to my own
routines when the device is opened. Is this an
appropriate solution? 

Thank you very much. And please kindly correct me if I
am wrong.

Regards,
Roy Ho

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