At 03:29 AM 5/14/99 , Dave McConnell wrote:
>Why does "struct ifnet" have a "void *if_softc" as its first field. It 
>seems unnecessary...
>
>Isn't ifnet always the first field in a network drivers softc structure?

No.  For physical interfaces, struct device is first.

>In which case the pointer to the drivers "struct softc" is also the 
>address of the devices "struct ifnet" (analogous to inheritence in 
>C++) or am I missing something here ?

But that usually isn't the case.

>Along the same lines, I also see explicit useage of the softc's ifnet 
>field address rather than the address of the softc structure itself 
>when an ifnet address is required.

This so we can use C's limited typechecking to hopefully prevent bugs.
Note that if/when we switch to dynamic ifnet structures (for pcmcia
and/or usb), compilation warnings will occur where code has not been
updated.
-- 
Matt Thomas               Internet:   matt@3am-software.com
3am Software Foundry      WWW URL:    http://www.3am-software.com/bio/matt/
Sunnyvale, CA             Disclaimer: I avow all knowledge of this message