HalView - view HAL pin values externally in C++
17 Feb 2012 15:06 - 18 Aug 2014 23:50 #17760
by ArcEye
HalView - view HAL pin values externally in C++ was created by ArcEye
Hi
If you have had to open a watch window and populate it with the pins you want to watch, every single time
that you change some code and restart LinuxCNC, you may appeciate this.
This is just a brief resume of the use of halview to assist in debugging etc with a LinuxCNC configuration.
It assumes a working knowledge of HAL.
Precompiled binaries of halview, redisclient and test are in the zip package,
compiled against the standard rtai kernel for the Ubuntu 10.4 /LinucCNC 2.4.3 package
so most of you will be able to just use these binaries.
It relies upon QT3, and those libraries must be installed, plus the development files if building yourself.
halview was written to assist debugging a component for LinuxCNC.
It provides a means of monitoring pin values independently of the rtai system, ie the monitoring program
is independent of LinuxCNC and is unaffected by stopping and re-starting LinuxCNC.
It comes in 5 parts
1) redis is a key database daemon launched at startup of the OS which stores values by keys.
This needs to be installed, see redis.io/download
2) hiredis is a C library which provides the calling functions to set and get values from redis
download from github.com/antirez/hiredis compile and install the libraries
3) redisclient is a Userspace component which provides 6 bit value pins (B0 - B5), 6 s32 (long int) value pins (D0 - D5) and 6 floating point value pins (F0 - F5) which can be net(ted) to existing signals and unattached OUT pins that you wish to monitor.
Additional pins can be written in, the code is quite straight forward, the keys are put into arrays and refreshed in a for() loop, so very few amendments would be required.
Example of use in .hal file :-
redisclient will update the values of all 18 pins once per second, frequency could be changed in the code.
The pin values will be stored in redis, under the keys B0 - B5, D0 - D5, F0 - F5.
4) halview is a QT3 based gui which queries redis for these key values, either once per second,
or in manual mode every time the refresh button is displayed and displays them.
It has text edit boxes alongside each key for an identifying user entry as to which pin /signal it refers to.
Once halview is opened, it can be left running for the entire session and just switched to 'manual' whenever redisclient is not loaded
and therefore no updates are happening.
5) test binary will populate all the pin values to facilitate the initial testing of halview.
As a spin off, the code demonstrates a method of getting values from HAL and making them available to external programs, using the redis database and hiredis C libraries.
If it is of use to anyone - enjoy
If you have had to open a watch window and populate it with the pins you want to watch, every single time
that you change some code and restart LinuxCNC, you may appeciate this.
This is just a brief resume of the use of halview to assist in debugging etc with a LinuxCNC configuration.
It assumes a working knowledge of HAL.
Precompiled binaries of halview, redisclient and test are in the zip package,
compiled against the standard rtai kernel for the Ubuntu 10.4 /LinucCNC 2.4.3 package
so most of you will be able to just use these binaries.
It relies upon QT3, and those libraries must be installed, plus the development files if building yourself.
halview was written to assist debugging a component for LinuxCNC.
It provides a means of monitoring pin values independently of the rtai system, ie the monitoring program
is independent of LinuxCNC and is unaffected by stopping and re-starting LinuxCNC.
It comes in 5 parts
1) redis is a key database daemon launched at startup of the OS which stores values by keys.
This needs to be installed, see redis.io/download
2) hiredis is a C library which provides the calling functions to set and get values from redis
download from github.com/antirez/hiredis compile and install the libraries
3) redisclient is a Userspace component which provides 6 bit value pins (B0 - B5), 6 s32 (long int) value pins (D0 - D5) and 6 floating point value pins (F0 - F5) which can be net(ted) to existing signals and unattached OUT pins that you wish to monitor.
Additional pins can be written in, the code is quite straight forward, the keys are put into arrays and refreshed in a for() loop, so very few amendments would be required.
Example of use in .hal file :-
loadusr -W redisclient
# attaching redisclient - these are all signal names from the hal file in which included
net tool-change => redisclient.B0
net tool-changed => redisclient.B1
net tool-number => redisclient.D0
net tool-oldnumber => redisclient.D1
net xhomed => redisclient.B2
net zhomed => redisclient.B3
net delaystart => redisclient.B4
net delaydone => redisclient.B5
net ontool => => redisclient.D2redisclient will update the values of all 18 pins once per second, frequency could be changed in the code.
The pin values will be stored in redis, under the keys B0 - B5, D0 - D5, F0 - F5.
4) halview is a QT3 based gui which queries redis for these key values, either once per second,
or in manual mode every time the refresh button is displayed and displays them.
It has text edit boxes alongside each key for an identifying user entry as to which pin /signal it refers to.
Once halview is opened, it can be left running for the entire session and just switched to 'manual' whenever redisclient is not loaded
and therefore no updates are happening.
5) test binary will populate all the pin values to facilitate the initial testing of halview.
As a spin off, the code demonstrates a method of getting values from HAL and making them available to external programs, using the redis database and hiredis C libraries.
If it is of use to anyone - enjoy
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18 Feb 2012 16:02 #17798
by mhaberler
Replied by mhaberler on topic Re:HalView - view HAL pin values externally in C++
btw, I think redis is a good choice - excellent fellow users 
groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/redis-db/d4QcWV0p-YM
-m
groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/redis-db/d4QcWV0p-YM
-m
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