jabo has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm trying to adapt Bruce Garlock's logger.pl code example to log call records from an old NEC NEAX 2400 PBX on a PC running Linux. These records are terminated by <Ctrl-C> rather than <CR> or <LF>. The script replaces the <Ctrl-C> with a newline when it logs it.

I've tried using the Device::SerialPort setting "$ob->is_tty_eol(3)" to set the end-of-line character on the port but it appears to have no effect. (Am I mistaken about its intended function?)

I test the script by executing it in background and use "tail -f /var/log/router.log" to monitor records as they arrive. Data in the format "record1<Ctrl-C>record2<Ctrl-C>" will not show up until a newline character is written to the serial port by the remote device. (I'm emulating the NEC by sending a test data file from a Linux laptop, so that's how I'm able to force the newline character to the port.) As soon as the newline character is received, the buffered records are logged properly to the file as:

record1
record2

Is there a way to release each buffered record as soon as the <Ctrl-C> EOL character is seen? In actual usage, I can't force a newline character from the NEC PBX to release the buffer.

For this application, I'm using perl 5.8.0, Device::SerialPort 0.22, and Linux kernel 2.4.20.
#!/usr/bin/perl # # # Author: Bruce S. Garlock # Date: 2002-09-11 # Requirements: Device::SerialPort 0.12 (from cpan) # # Modifications: # # jabo 4/20/2005 Hardcode port settings for /dev/ttyS0 # and insert ^C to newline conversion. # Attempt to make ^C the EOL character. # # Version: 0.1 # # # Description: This perl script is for logging of data from a serial # port, to a specified logfile. The logfile can then be parsed with # other programs for reporting purposes. # # This program was written for specifically logging Multitech's # MTASR2-203 T1 Router. The router outputs text to the command # port with 57.6k, 8-1-N, and No flow control. # # use Device::SerialPort 0.12; $LOGDIR = "/var/log"; # path to data file $LOGFILE = "router.log"; # file name to output to $PORT = "/dev/ttyS0"; # port to watch # # # Serial Settings # # $ob = Device::SerialPort->new ($PORT) || die "Can't Open $PORT: $!"; $ob->baudrate(9600) || die "failed setting baudrate"; $ob->parity("none") || die "failed setting parity"; $ob->databits(7) || die "failed setting databits"; $ob->handshake("none") || die "failed setting handshake"; $ob->is_stty_eol(3) || die "failed to set eol"; $ob->write_settings || die "no settings"; # # Send a string to the port # # #$pass=$ob->write("AT"); #sleep 1; # # open the logfile, and Port # open(LOG,">>${LOGDIR}/${LOGFILE}") ||die "can't open smdr file $LOGDIR/$LOGFILE for append: $SUB $!\n +"; open(DEV, "<$PORT") || die "Cannot open $PORT: $_"; select(LOG), $| = 1; # set nonbufferd mode # # Loop forver, logging data to the log file # while($_ = <DEV>){ # print input device to file s/\003/\012/g; # convert ^C to newline print LOG $_; } undef $ob;

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Re: How can I log a record with Ctrl-C as EOL from a serial port?
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 25, 2005 at 15:48 UTC

    Does the following work?

    $/ = "\3";

    It works on other file (and tty and pipe) handles.

    Update: Forget the select stuff I had in there. It didn't do anything.

      Yes, that works perfectly. Thank you very much.
Re: How can I log a record with Ctrl-C as EOL from a serial port?
by isotope (Deacon) on Apr 25, 2005 at 15:18 UTC
    I did something like this several years ago, before Device::SerialPort existed. Are you sure you can't alter the NEAX's output? I'm pretty sure I was working with LF-separated lines. I'll see if I can dig up my old code.

    Update: found it

    I did have to replace the ctrl-c, and I got around the buffering issue by using Term::ReadKey to poll the serial port directly (which pushed the load average to 1.0, but worked fine on a dedicated box).


    --isotope