Serial logging

I'm currently helping debug a PVR, which is spewing out serial debug which I need to capture. The PVR is connected up to my A1XE with an RS232 lead, and I can update the software on the PVR using NComm (Term crashes) and capture the raw serial output to a file from the PVR box using Term. However, this is not quite enough as the manufacturer really needs time/date info prepended to each line of serial output, which Term cannot do.

So, is anyone aware of any existing software that can help with this task, OS4 native or failing that classic? I can't seem to find any terminal program newer than Term on OS4depot/Aminet. Perhaps there is a way to pipe the capture output from Term using a some sort of handler as the file?

@Futaura

Terminus and VLT still work under OS4. Have you tried either one of them?

@Valiant

Have now tried VLT and Terminus, and they don't seem to have the option of logging the date/time with the capture lines either.

I have found some sort of solution though, by using SysLog. I can now open the capture to LOG: and the serial output gets saved by SysLog, prepended with the date and time on each line which is exactly what I need. A bit of a round about way of doing it, but it'll do until I can find something better.

@Futaura

What's a PVR?

@Futaura

There are several versions of "Term" around. The latest version I think is Term 4.8, which runs just fine on my A1 and Sam. I use it daily.

@Antique

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_recorder

@tonyw

Yes, I'm currently using Term 4.8 (was always my terminal program of choice) in conjunction with SysLog to save the capture with date info. File transfers do not appear to work in Term on OS4 though - trying to initiate an Xmodem upload, for example, causing the system to lock up. I've read people blaming the XPR libraries in other threads, but it looks like Term is really the problem, as NComm uses those libraries too, and Xmodem uploading works fine with that.

Some people seem to think serial is dead, but it is still popular for debugging many devices. For anyone interested, these are the PVRs, DTRs, DVRs, or whatever else you wish to call them, that I am currently helping to debug using my A1XE to see and log all the debug output.

@Futaura
Quote:
It's a bug in the gtlayout.library, ask Cyborg if you want his fixed library (he has not released it because he might broke something else in the library).

@ZeroG

Quote:

Indeed. I totally forgot about investigating gtlayout.lib further to ensure that everything is working and to release a fixed version... Olaf unfortunately doesn't seem to have time to do it himself..

Thanks for the heads up.. noted on my todo list.

@ Futaura

Of course if the nonworking filetransfers are the only thing which prevent you from using Term and if you badly need it, please drop me a PM with your email address and I'll send you the patched gtlayou.lib ... without any guarantee that it will work 100% reliable of course.

@Futaura

I must admit I've never used any of those serial transfer modes (at least, not since the days of 300 baud BBSs). I use Term to capture serial data, I save it to a file in RAM, then read it from the other machine using Samba over the ethernet connection.

I eventually had to give up on my Term / SysLog solution as debug was added to the PVR that contained the '%' character which in turn made LOG: go bang for obvious reasons.

So, in the end I made my own app to read from the serial port and dump it to a file in the desired format. In hindsight I should have done that from the start, but I was too lazy and was hoping there was a solution already out there on Aminet or OS4depot . Fortunately, I have made apps in the past that use the serial port, so it didn't take more than 30 minutes to knock something up using existing serial routines that I had almost forgotten I'd written years ago .

Thanks for everyones help - maybe I'll develop this program into a tool that can be released (I'm still lazy and there are no command line options yet - everything is hardcoded). Perhaps somebody other than me might find it useful???