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.TH oss_midiloop 7 "09 March 2015" "" "OSS Devices"
.SH NAME
\fBoss_midiloop \fP- Loopback MIDI driver.
\fB
.SH DESCRIPTION
The loopback midi driver makes it possible to create special purpose
virtual midi devices based on user land server processes.
.SH INTRODUCTION
MIDI loopback devices are like named pipes or pseudo terminals. They are 
grouped in client and server device pairs. The server side device must be open
before the client side device can be opened.
.SS SERVER SIDE DEVICE
The server side device is used by some special application (such as a
software based MIDI synthesizer) to receice MIDI events from the applications
that want to play MIDI.
.SS CLIENT SIDE DEVICE
Client applications such as MIDI players open the client side device when they
need to play some MIDI stream (file). The client side device behaves like any
"ordinary" MIDI device. However it cannot be opened when there is no program
connected to the server side.
.SH COMPATIBILITY ISSUES
MIDI loopback devices differ from "normal" MIDI devices because an
application is needed at the both ends of the loop. The loop device
will return a "Connection reset by peer" error (ECONNRESET) error. Applications
designed to be used as loopback based server applications can/should use this
error (returned by read or write) as an end-of-stream indication.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B
o midiloop_instances:
Specifies how many loopback client/server MIDI device
pairs to be created.
.RS
.TP
.B
Values: 1-16
Default: 1
.SH KNOWN PROBLEMS
None
.SH FILES
/etc/oss4/conf/oss_midiloop.conf Device configuration file
.SH AUTHOR
4Front Technologies