Multiple entries in /proc/bus/input/devices for same device

Question

I have one USB touchscreen connected to my hardware setup but using cat /proc/bus/input/devices gives me two entries for the same device :

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=2965 Product=5023 Version=0110
N: Name="Kortek Kortek Touch"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:14.0-3.4/input2
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3.4/3-3.4:1.2/0003:2965:5023.0006/input/input7
U: Uniq=S20131028
H: Handlers=mouse1 event7 js0
B: PROP=0
B: EV=1b
B: KEY=30000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=3
B: MSC=10


I: Bus=0003 Vendor=2965 Product=5023 Version=0110
N: Name="Kortek Kortek Touch"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:14.0-3.4/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3.4/3-3.4:1.0/0003:2965:5023.0004/input/input13
U: Uniq=S20131028
H: Handlers=mouse2 event13
B: PROP=2
B: EV=b
B: KEY=400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=a608000 3

why are there two different entries for this same device ?

Answer 1

I think I found the reason behind this.

The same device is exposed to USB subsystem as two devices with different interfaces.

like in the entry Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3.4/3-3.4:1.2/0003:2965:5023.0006/input/input7, the device exposes Interface 2 of the hardware as seen from the string 3-3.4:1.2 where the last digit is InterfaceNumber.

If we look at the output of cat /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3.4/3-3.4:1.2/0003:2965:5023.0006/input/input7/device, we can see that DRIVER=hid-generic which says that this interface of the hardware exposes this device as USBHID generic.

However, for the other entry whose interface is 0 as seen in /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3.4/3-3.4:1.0/0003:2965:5023.0004/input/input13 , the output of cat /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3.4/3-3.4:1.0/0003:2965:5023.0004/input/input13/device shows that DRIVER=hid-multitouch which means that this interface of the hardware exposes it as HID MULTITOUCH.

Therefore, the two entries for the same hardware.