NdisGetRoutineAddress (NDIS 5.1) routine

Note   NDIS 5. x has been deprecated and is superseded by NDIS 6. x. For new NDIS driver development, see Network Drivers Starting with Windows Vista. For information about porting NDIS 5. x drivers to NDIS 6. x, see Porting NDIS 5.x Drivers to NDIS 6.0.

NdisGetRoutineAddress returns the address of a routine given the routine's name.

Syntax

PVOID NdisGetRoutineAddress(
  _In_ PNDIS_STRING NdisRoutineName
);

Parameters

• NdisRoutineName [in]
  Pointer to a UNICODE_STRING structure that specifies the string that contains the name of a routine.

Return value

Returns the address of the routine whose name is specified at NdisRoutineName if the routine is available; otherwise, NULL.

Remarks

An NDIS driver can use NdisGetRoutineAddress to obtain the address of an exported NDIS routine. The driver can then use this address to call the NDIS routine.

An NDIS driver can use NdisGetRoutineAddress if the driver must remain backward compatible. For example, if such a driver imports an NDIS routine that is not exported by the version of NDIS that is currently running, the I/O manager will not load the driver on the operating system. However, the driver can first use NdisGetRoutineAddress to determine whether the routine is available in the version of NDIS that is currently running. If available, the address of the routine is returned. The driver can then use the address to call the routine. If not available, NULL is returned. The driver cannot call the routine, but the driver still loads on the operating system.

No performance improvement is gained by using the address that is returned by NdisGetRoutineAddress instead of calling the specified routine by name. Therefore, do not write an NDIS driver to use NdisGetRoutineAddress if you know that the NDIS version with which the driver will run exports the specified routine.

System support for NdisGetRoutineAddress is available in Windows XP and later versions.

Typically, an NDIS driver calls NdisGetRoutineAddress in its DriverEntry routine.

Requirements

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