IIO libiio

Libiio is a complete library which offers tools and an interface to develop an application using IIO subsystem.

1 Article purpose[edit]

The purpose of this article is to:

  • briefly introduce the libiio main features and API
  • provide few examples, using libiio tools

2 Introduction[edit]

  • Libiio is a user space library that provides an interface for user space applications. It is basically a wrapper that resides above the following interfaces:
  1. /sys/bus/iio/devices sysfs interface (for configuration/setting)
  2. /dev/iio/deviceX device interface (for data)
  • Libiio also provides tools that can be used for testing
  • Libiio design goals:
  1. Interface with the kernel, to access IIO[1] devices
  2. Provide proper data structures and functions to the user application
  3. Support for local and remote backends allowing applications to access the devices when running on a local or a remote machine

The full description of the IIO library is provided by the author of the library, see below references:

  • What is libiio[2].
  • About libiio[3].

3 API description[edit]

The API description can be found here: https://analogdevicesinc.github.io/libiio

4 Tools[edit]

Libiio offers tools such as:

  • iiod server daemon
  • iio_info to dump attributes
root@stm32mp1:~# iio_info 
Library version: 0.8 (git tag: v0.8)
IIO context created with local backend.
Backend version: 0.8 (git tag: v0.8)
Backend description string: Linux stm32mp1 4.14.0-00004-gafe4a31 #778 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 28 14:02:25 CEST 2018 armv7l
IIO context has 3 devices:
        trigger1: tim6_trgo
                0 channels found:
                3 device-specific attributes found:
                                attr 0: sampling_frequency value: 100
                                attr 1: master_mode value: reset
                                attr 2: master_mode_available value: reset enable update compare_pulse OC1REF OC2REF OC3REF OC4REF
        iio:device0: 48003000.adc:adc@0 (buffer capable)
                2 channels found:
                        voltage0:  (input, index: 0, format: le:U16/16>>0)
                        3 channel-specific attributes found:
                                attr 0: raw value: 72
                                attr 1: offset value: 0
                                attr 2: scale value: 0.044250488
                        voltage1:  (input, index: 1, format: le:U16/16>>0)
                        3 channel-specific attributes found:
                                attr 0: raw value: 1746
                                attr 1: offset value: 0
                                attr 2: scale value: 0.044250488
...
  • iio_readdev[4] (to read or scan from a device)
STM32AP [rc=0]# iio_readdev -t trigger1 -s 8 -b 8 iio:device0 voltage0 voltage1 | hexdump
0000000 0068 055a 0058 0520 00b4 03df 0070 055f
0000010 0096 03d6 0089 038f 0077 05c8 0096 03b3

See also: How to use the IIO user space interface

5 Source code[edit]

Libiio can be downloaded on a public github[5]. It can be cloned using git command:

git clone https://github.com/analogdevicesinc/libiio.git

Tools source code can be found under libiio "tests" directory.

6 Installation on your target[edit]

Libiio and the tools it provides are embedded by default in OpenSTLinux distribution.

7 References[edit]