Naša orodja
Orodja, s katerimi delamo za vas.
Eltima Virtual Serial Port Driver
To orodje je res prava zadeva za razvijalce. Ne le, da lahko z njim ustvarimo virtualne serijske vhode (rs232), na katere lahko testno pošiljamo podatke iz aplikacije, ima tudi nekaj precej uporabnih funkcij:
- Pairing – ustvarjanje navideznega serijskega kabla, vključenega v serijske vhode na obeh straneh
- Splitting – iz enega fizičnega vhoda v več virtualnih. Podatke pošljemo na fizični vhod, ti pa se razdelijo po vseh virtualnih.
- Joining – združimo več fizičnih vhodov v enega virtualnega. Vsi podatki poslani na fizične vhode končajo na virtualnem.
- Merge – za nas najboljša funkcija. Dodamo lahko več fizičnih in virtualnih vhodov v en paket. Na katerikoli vhod pošljemo podatke, se ti prenesejo na vse ostale v paketu. Kot omrežje serijskih vhodov, res enkratno.
- Switch – neke vrste posebnost. V paket dodamo več fizičnih vhodov in enega virtualnega. Nato več aplikacij lahko naenkrat uporablja virtualni vhod in preko njega komunicira s fizičnimi v paketu.
- Redirect – preusmeritev. Preusmerimo podatke s fizičnega vhoda na virtualnega. Zelo uporabno, kadar neka aplikacija lahko komunicira npr. le preko vhoda COM1, računalnik pa ima fizične vhode le COM3 in COM4.
- Share – novost, ki je nismo našli v drugih podobnih izdelkih. Izberemo fizični vhod, do katerega ima več aplikacij hkraten dostop. Vendar ima le ena aplikacija nad vhodom kontrolo.
- Complex – no, če želimo ustvariti svet serijskih vhodov in povezav, je tole prava stvar. Uporabimo domišljijo in naredimo, kar želimo. VSPD bo poskrbel za to.
VSPD je obvezno orodje za razvijalce, ki imajo opravka s serijskimi vhodi in povezavami. Je kot švicarski nož za serijske vhode. Najbolje pa je, da je uporaba, kljub naprednim funkcijam, še vedno zelo enostavna.
Seveda pa imajo tudi običajni uporabniki lahko koristi od takega orodja. Včasih potrebujemo le kakšno malenkost, ki jo Okna ne podpirajo. Čeprav sami uporabljamo naprednejše možnosti, ni razloga, da enostavna opravila ne bi prepustili VSPDju. Enkrat nastavimo in pozabimo nanj. Deluje.
Povezava do Virtual Serial Port Driver PRO – https://www.virtual-serial-port.org/
Naš glavni način uporabe:
Kot rečeno, uporabljamo največ Merge funkcijo. Ena od naših aplikacij ne zmore pošiljati podatke na več kot en serijski vhod hkrati. Vendar imamo več naprav, ki morajo hkrati sprejeti podatke. Z VSPDjem za namene testiranja združimo virtualne vhode COM7 do COM10 (predstavljajo naše zunanje naprave). Na ta način aplikacija pošlje podatke na COM7, vhod COM8 do COM10 pa te podatke sprejmejo.
Nastavitev v VSPD izgleda takole:
Naša aplikacija pošlje podatke na COM7 in kot je razvidno s spodnje slike, vhodi COM8 do COM10 prejmejo podatke istočasno:
Ko sta razvoj in testiranje zaključena, pri uporabniku pa je predvidenih več naprav za uporabo z našo aplikacijo, lahko stranka brez skrbi postavi fizični razdelilnik serijskih povezav ali pa namesti več fizičnih vhodov v računalnik in s pomočjo VSPDja ustvari paket enega virtualnega vhoda in več obstoječih fizičnih.
Eltima Serial Port Monitor
Eltima Serial Port Monitor (SPM) je zelo napreden prisluškovalec komunikacije med serijskimi vhodi naprav.
Prav obožujemo tovrstne prisluškovalce, saj nam pokažejo vse, kar se dogaja v komunikaciji med napravami s serijsko povezavo.
Vendar je prisluškovanje povezavi eno, imeti poleg tega še kup ostalih podatkov o povezavi pa drugo. In SPM omogoča seveda oboje.
Uporaba je precej enostavna.
Izberemo “New session”, nastavimo vhod, kaj želimo spremljati in opazovati ter kliknemo “Start monitoring”. To je vse.
Če uporabljamo PRO verzijo, ta omogoča celo pošiljanje podatkov v povezavo.
Kar pomeni ne le opazovanje komunikacije ampak dejansko vplivanje na komunikacijo. Kar je fenomenalno, kajti kot razvijalci imamo možnost, da v primeru, ko ena naprava ne pošlje drugi, kar smo pričakovali, lahko sami simuliramo pošiljanje pravega podatka in spremljamo odziv naprave, ki naj bi sprejela podatke. Dve muhi na en mah.
In temu lahko rečemo bonbonček za razvijalca!
Torej, če ustvarjamo aplikacije, ki vključujejo serijske povezave, je to nepogrešljiv pripomoček.
Povezava do Serial Port Monitor – https://www.com-port-monitoring.com/
Naš način uporabe:
SPM uporabljamo za dve vrsti nalog. Ena je opisana zgoraj. Druga pa, khm, nekateri bi rekli, da “hekamo” ali se gremo “povratni inženiring”.
S tem mislimo na to, da pogosto uporabljamo SPM, ko nimamo na voljo nobene tehnične dokumentacije o napravah, ki jih povezujemo oz. bi z njimi radi komunicirali. V takih primerih uporabimo SPM, da opazujemo kaj naprava pošilja in sprejema ter kako se odziva na naše zahteve.
Primer komunikacije:
Delovanje naprave nam je znano, zato z njo opravimo različne meritve in skušamo v SPMu ugotoviti razlike v poslanih podatkih in na ta način razumeti poslane podatke.
Brez Serial Port Monitorja bi bilo to povsem nemogoče.
Eltima’s Virtual Serial Port Driver
This piece of software (VSPD) is really helpful for developers like us. Not only does it create a virtual port to which you can send some data to test your own application, but also has some really neat features:
- Pairing – it’s like creating a virtual serial cable and connecting it to a port on each side
- Splitting – use one real port and and multiply it. You can send data to a real port and data gets distributed to multiple virtual ports
- Joining – if you have several real ports and you want data sent to it always be directed to one virtual port, this is the feature
- Merge – for us this is the best feature. You can add multiple real ports and multiple virtual ports to the bundle. To whatever port in the bundle you send data to, it get sent to all other ports in the bundle. Like a network of serial ports, really awesome.
- Switch – this one sounds special. You add multiple real ports and assign a single virtual port name to the bundle. Then multiple applications can open the same virtual port but thru it communicate with any real port in the bundle.
- Redirect – the title says it all. You redirect one real port to a virtual port. Handy when some app can only communicate with COM1 for example but your computer only has ports COM3 and COM4. The redirect will make this work.
- Share – this is something we haven’t seen in any other product. You can choose a real port and multiple applications have simultaneous access to it. However, only one has the control over the port and its signal lines.
- Complex – well, if you wanna create a world of serial ports and become a serial port tycoon, this is your playground. Let your imagination go free and do whatever you like. VSPD will take care of it.
VSPD is a must-have tool for any developer that needs to manipulate serial ports. It’s like a swiss army knife for serial ports. The best thing really is that one tools covers so many usage scenarios, while still being user friendly.
However, end users might benefit from it aswell. Sometimes you just need to do something with serial ports that Windows cannot do themselves. So, although we use it as a very powerful tool, it can also be used a simple tool that does just what you need. And once setup, forget it’s there.
Link to Virtual Serial Port Driver PRO – https://www.virtual-serial-port.org/
Our primary usage:
As said before, we use Merge function. Our application is not capable of sending data to more than one serial port at the same time. However, we have more than one device that needs to receive the data. So using VSPD we have merged virtual ports from COM7 to COM10 for testing purposes. This way, when developing our application, we can send data to COM7 and it will be distributed to ports COM8, COM9 and COM10.
In the VSPD the setup looks like this:
Our application sends data to COM7 and as you can see below, ports COM8, 9 and 10 receive the data at the same time:
When development and testing is done and the customer has more than one device that needs to receive data, he can purchase a hardware device that will send data from single port to multiple devices or decide to install physical serial ports into the PC, purchase VSPD and merge one virtual port with several real ones.
Eltima’s Serial Port Monitor
Eltima’s Serial Port Monitor (SPM) is actually a very advanced sniffer of serial port communications.
We love these kind of sniffers because they tell us everything that’s going on between two or more devices hooked up thru serial connection.
However, sniffing data only is one thing, having information about all there is to serial comms is another. And SPM is the later.
Usage is pretty straight forward.
You select “New session”, set the port and what you need to watch and click “Start monitoring”. Easy as that.
Having PRO version you can even send some data into the stream.
So not only can you watch the communication, you can actually interfere. Which is just next to amazing because if you’re a developer and one device is not sending what you expect but you would still like to know the response of the receiving side, you can pretend to be the originator and check out what happens.
And that is a true candy for a developer!
So, if you are serious about serial comms app development, this is the product.
Link to Serial Port Monitor – https://www.com-port-monitoring.com/
Our usage:
We use SPM for two main tasks. One was just described above. The other is, well, some would say “for hacking” or “reverse engineering”.
What we mean by that is we often need to use SPM when we have no technical documentation about the device we want to communicate with over serial port. So we use SPM to see what device is sending and how it is responding to our requests.
Here’s an example of a device sending some binary data.
We know what a device does. So we take different measurements (it’s a device that measures the position of vehicle’s headlamps) and try to catch differences in each measurement data. That way we find out what byte means a result and when we find a pattern, we have what we need and we can make our application understand the data from the device.
Without serial port monitor that would be simply impossible.
Tukaj smo za vas!
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