SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING A NETWORK PROCESSOR

摘要

The present invention provides application programming interfaces (APIs) which allow host to control functioning of a network processor and also perform various network data manipulation functions. The APIs (76, 80) are intended to encapsulate as much as possible the underlying messaging between the host system (70) and the network processor (10) and to hide the low device level command details from the host. The APIs are provided by a program module. The host may invoke an API (80) which is communicated by the program module to the network processor where the functions corresponding to the API are performed. Responses to the APIs may be forwarded back to the host. Asynchronous callback functions, invoked in response to the API calls, may be used to forward responses to the host.