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Send Entire ASCII Capture File Out Serial Port

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:49 am
by pmonahan
Greetings,

I have hundreds of ASCII log files that I captured from our hardware's serial port using CoolTerm during hardware development.

I now have a third-party utility that can monitor the device via the serial port to analyze ASCII data in a realtime environment using a GUI.

In addition to connecting the hardware and analyzing realtime data with the 3rd party utility, I would also like to "replay" the ASCII data that I have previously captured as text files, out to a serial port.

I believe that this is as simple as using 'Send Text File'.

Q: Can this be done without physical serial connections if both CoolTerm and the 3rd Party Utility reside on the same machine?

Thanks

Peter

Re: Send Entire ASCII Capture File Out Serial Port

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:04 pm
by roger
There is a way to connect two serial terminals (or other serial port apps) on the same machine with virtual serial port emulators (e.g. https://freevirtualserialports.com). There seem to be several different options available, depending on your platform (Mac, Windows, Linux). I don't have a particular recommendation as I haven't really tested any of them.

For a platform-independent option, there are dual-serial port adapters (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ETETZK/) and null-modem adapters (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/female-slimline- ... 075XGRLXW/) to connect the two ports. Not exactly a "non-physical" solution, but I one I know to be working flawlessly.

Re: Send Entire ASCII Capture File Out Serial Port

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 10:59 am
by pmonahan
Thanks, I was able to accomplish using two FTDI adaptors.

I was trying to pull this off without using physical hardware connections.

Re: Send Entire ASCII Capture File Out Serial Port

Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 11:21 pm
by roger
Thanks for posting back. Yes, using two physical ports will always get the job done. Unfortunately, there aren't many virtual serial port options for macOS (which I assume you are using). There is this: https://github.com/clokey/PublicCode/tr ... SerialPort
However, this apparently no longer works for newer versions of macOS. But it is (or was) essentially what you are looking for. It's a wrapper for socat, which is a command line tool that can be uses to create a relay between two independent data channels (e.g. devices in /dev/). I don't have any experience with it, but there is a build for the macOS you can install via brew: https://brewinstall.org/Install-socat-on-Mac-with-Brew/