Man page 9 : parport_yield

parport_yield - relinquish a parallel port temporarily

int parport_yield(struct pardevice *  dev );

dev
    a device on the parallel port

This function relinquishes the port if it would be helpful to other drivers to do so. Afterwards it tries to reclaim the port using parport_claim, and the return value is the same as for parport_claim. If it fails, the port is left unclaimed and it is the driverAqs responsibility to reclaim the port.

The parport_yield and parport_yield_blocking functions are for marking points in the driver at which other drivers may claim the port and use their devices. Yielding the port is similar to releasing it and reclaiming it, but is more efficient because no action is taken if there are no other devices needing the port. In fact, nothing is done even if there are other devices waiting but the current device is still within its « timeslice ». The default timeslice is half a second, but it can be adjusted via the /proc interface.