video_device_alloc(9)

🎀 video_device_alloc(9) 🎀

okay bestie, welcome to the Kernel API Manual — this one's a tiny little icon in the media/Kconfig of it all, and honestly she's giving "short but essential." let's get into it ✨

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✨ NAME ✨

video_device_alloc — the helper function that allocates a &struct video_device for you, no cap 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

struct video_device * video_device_alloc (void );

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🦋 ARGUMENTS 🦋

• void — literally no arguments. that's it. nothing. zero. the void is voiding, and she's living her best empty life 💅

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the tea 👑: she hands you back NULL if you hit -ENOMEM, or she returns a struct video_device on success. that's the whole story. she either comes through with the goods or she gives you the big ol' NULL and you deal with it 😭

lowkey the simplest glow-up in the whole v4l2 cinematic universe, but every main character needs her entrance. ✨

reminder bestie: check for that NULL before you start dereferencing, fr fr — -ENOMEM is real and she will show up when you least expect her 💀

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

girl, the friend group is huge, so buckle up 🍓

• Kernel file ./include/media/v4l2-dev.h
• enum vfl_devnode_type(9)
• enum vfl_devnode_direction(9)
• enum v4l2_video_device_flags(9)
• struct v4l2_prio_state(9)
• v4l2_prio_init(9)
• v4l2_prio_change(9)
• v4l2_prio_open(9)
• v4l2_prio_close(9)
• v4l2_prio_max(9)
• v4l2_prio_check(9)
• struct v4l2_file_operations(9)
• struct video_device(9)
• media_entity_to_video_device(9)
• to_video_device(9)
• __video_register_device(9)
• video_register_device(9)
• video_register_device_no_warn(9)
• video_unregister_device(9)
• video_device_release(9)
• video_device_release_empty(9)
• v4l2_disable_ioctl(9)
• video_get_drvdata(9)
• video_set_drvdata(9)
• video_devdata(9)
• video_drvdata(9)
• video_device_node_name(9)
• video_is_registered(9)
• v4l2_debugfs_root(9)
• video_device_pipeline_start(9)
• __video_device_pipeline_start(9)
• video_device_pipeline_stop(9)
• __video_device_pipeline_stop(9)
• video_device_pipeline_alloc_start(9)
• video_device_pipeline(9)

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aaaand that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 🧚💜 one last lil' sign-off: this lil' beauty lives in ./include/media, stamped October 2026, and she'll always be here for you as video_device_alloc(9). slay, periodt, go allocate something iconic 🌈⭐