Patent ID: 7480789

Claim:
A method for providing access to data in a programmable integrated circuit (IC), comprising: maintaining a hierarchy of directories and files in a virtual file system that is registered with an operating system, wherein the directories and files are associated with resources of the programmable IC; wherein the directories and files have names indicative of resources of the programmable IC; in response to program calls to file system routines that reference the names of files that indicate resources of the programmable IC, invoking the virtual file system; and accessing state information in resources of the programmable IC by the virtual file system, wherein the accessing includes: reading configuration data from a set of resources of the programmable IC in response to a call to a first file system routine that references the name of a file that indicates the set of resources; writing configuration data to a set of resources of the programmable IC in response to a call to a second file system routine that references the name of a file that indicates the set of resources; and disabling a clock signal input to the programmable IC in response to a call to a third virtual file system function.