Problems receiving Notifications from IOKit (CoreFoundation) for plugged Devices

Question

I'm currently developing an application on 10.6.7 which should receive notifications when a new usb device is plugged in. I found out that there is a IOKit function which handles such stuff 'IOServiceAddMatchingNotification'. Because the return value from this specific function is 0, I think that the problem perhaps is in my matching Dictionary, which is given into this function. I declare the Dictionary that way:

CFMutableDictionaryRef matchingDict = IOServiceMatching(kIOUSBDeviceClassName);

Because I wan't to receive a notification for each device, I don't know if this is the right way to create this particular dictionary.

My complete code look like this:

ioKitNotificationPort = IONotificationPortCreate(kIOMasterPortDefault);
notificationRunLoopSource = IONotificationPortGetRunLoopSource(ioKitNotificationPort);

CFRunLoopAddSource(CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), notificationRunLoopSource, kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);

CFMutableDictionaryRef matchingDict = IOServiceMatching(kIOUSBDeviceClassName);


addMatchingNotificationResult = IOServiceAddMatchingNotification(ioKitNotificationPort,
                                                                 kIOPublishNotification,
                                                                 matchingDict,
                                                                 deviceAdded,
                                                                 NULL,

Does anyone has a idea why this won't work? (Note: The Callback function is a static void c function and the rest is wrapped ins ide a Obj-C class).

Thanks

Xcode 4, 10.6.7

Answer 1

Weirdly, you must empty the iterator returned by IOServiceAddMatchingNotification before the notification will be armed. I don't see that in the code provided, so that could be in the issue. That iterator is actually what you need to keep around to keep the notification running.

io_iterator_t ioNotification;

addMatchingNotificationResult = IOServiceAddMatchingNotification(ioKitNotificationPort,
                                                                 kIOPublishNotification,
                                                                 matchingDict,
                                                                 deviceAdded,
                                                                 NULL,
                                                                 &ioNotification);

while ((service = IOIteratorNext(ioNotification)))
{
    NSLog(@"Hey, I found a service!");

    IOObjectRelease(service); // yes, you have to release this
}

Answer 2

In my opinion, u should download the source code form IOUSBFamily on opensource.apple.com, and then find the code for USB Prober, this application does exactly the same thing as u described, listening the USB Device attachment.(Further, USB Prober also get the general device and configuration descriptor, maybe it is also the things u need.)