COMEDI_ARM(3)

💖 COMEDI_ARM 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to comedi_arm from the Comedilib manual pages (section 3, library functions, if you're keeping track 🎀). it's giving ✨legacy instrumentation✨, it's giving 🦋C library realness🦋, and yes, it arms a subdevice. no cap.

---

✨ NAME ✨

comedi_arm — arm a subdevice 🎯

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <comedilib.h>

int comedi_arm(comedi_t * device, unsigned int subdevice,
               unsigned int source);

---

🚧 STATUS 🚧

alpha

like... it works, but it's a work in progress, babe. tread gently 💅

---

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

so what does this function actually do? it arms a subdevice. that's it, that's the tweet. for example, it might arm a counter so the counter starts counting — like pressing play on the vibes 🎵

the source parameter tells the subdevice what should trigger it to begin. and here's the tea: the possible sources are driver-dependent. so like, every driver gets to pick its own lil menu of options, iykyk.

⚠️ heads up bestie: this function is ONLY useable on subdevices that provide support for the INSN_CONFIG_ARM configuration instruction. no instruction, no arming. periodt.

and here's the part you really need to know 👇 some subdevices treat this whole thing as an instruction to arm a specific channel. for those subdevices, calling this function will arm channel 0. so if you actually wanna pick your channel, you should be calling comedi_arm_channel instead of this one. don't be out here arming channel 0 by accident, that's not the move 😭

---

🔥 RETURN VALUE 🔥

• 0 — success, we ate 👑
• -1 — error, it's giving 💀

---

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

the icons who made this happen, show some respect:

• David Schleef <ds@schleef.org> — Author.
• Frank Mori Hess <fmhess@users.sourceforge.net> — Author.
• Herman Bruyninckx <Herman.Bruyninckx@mech.kuleuven.ac.be> — Author.
• Bernd Porr <tech@linux-usb-daq.co.uk> — Author.
• Ian Abbott <abbotti@mev.co.uk> — Author.
• Éric Piel <piel@delmic.com> — Author.

---

👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

the legal-ese portion of the program, but make it cute 🌈

Copyright © 1998-2003 David Schleef
Copyright © 2001-2003, 2005, 2008 Frank Mori Hess
Copyright © 2002-2003 Herman Bruyninckx
Copyright © 2012 Bernd Porr
Copyright © 2012 Ian Abbott
Copyright © 2012, 2015 Éric Piel

this document is part of Comedilib. and okay, specific lil detail incoming: in the context of this document, when the license says "source code", that means the XML source. got it? good 💅

this library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2.1 of the License.

this library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. see the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details. (fr fr, that's the actual legal energy, i'm not being dramatic 🙈)

you should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA 📬

---

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 comedi_arm(3), straight out of the Comedi reference, dated 03/20/2026 — go arm something responsibly, mwah 🎀🦋✨