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authorB. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>2021-07-21 00:36:07 -0400
committerB. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>2021-07-21 00:36:07 -0400
commit5acaf87d3cc244038c993b18ea22000c6a144dac (patch)
treed5003b6edb6853d7ef21913555a675936fe9b251 /README.txt
parentaa956853cc37d163113cafb2f1982b7a3a306fd1 (diff)
downloadslowbaud-5acaf87d3cc244038c993b18ea22000c6a144dac.tar.gz
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-SLOWBAUD(1) Urchlay's Useless Stuff SLOWBAUD(1)
+SLOWBAUD(1) Urchlay's Useless Stuff SLOWBAUD(1)
NAME
slowbaud - simulate a low bitrate serial connection
SYNOPSIS
- slowbaud <bits-per-sec> [<file> ...]
+ slowbaud [<bits-per-sec>] [<file> ...]
- slowbaud <bits-per-sec> -c [<command> [<arg> ...]]
+ slowbaud [<bits-per-sec>] -c [<command> [<arg> ...]]
-DESCRIPTION
- slowbaud by default acts as a filter, or like the cat(1) command. It reads files or
- its standard input, and writes the contents unmodified to standard output... but
- slowly, at the given bits-per-second rate. Output is unbuffered.
-
- With the -c option, it creates a pseudo-tty and runs the given command in it (or an
- interactive shell, if no command is given).
+ slowbaud [<bits-per-sec>] -e <string> [<string> ...]
- The <bits-per-sec> argument supports a range of 1 to 500000. Timing accuracy depends
- on your OS, kernel config (HZ and/or NO_HZ on Linux), and system load. No "fancy"
- techniques like realtime scheduling or hardware event timers are used. At bitrates up
- to 57600, on a typical unloaded Linux system, the timing should be around 99.7% accu‐
- rate.
+DESCRIPTION
+ slowbaud by default acts as a filter, or like the cat(1) command. It reads
+ files or its standard input, and writes the contents unmodified to standard
+ output... but slowly, at the given bits-per-second rate. Input and output are
+ unbuffered.
+
+ slowbaud can also act like echo(1) (the -e option), or run an interactive com‐
+ mand (the -c option).
+
+ The <bits-per-sec> argument is optional. If it's not given, the bit rate will
+ be set from SLOWBAUD_BPS in the environment, or a built-in default of 2400 if
+ not set.
+
+OPTIONS
+ bits-per-sec
+ The bit ("baud") rate to simulate. This must be the first argument.
+ slowbaud assumes that if the first argument is a number, it's the bit
+ rate. If you're trying to pass a filename that consists only of dig‐
+ its, give -- as the first argument, or use e.g. ./filename.
+
+ -e Echo mode. Prints all further arguments as strings to stdout, separated
+ by a single space, at the given bit rate. Does not support back‐
+ slash-escapes, or any of the options of the regular echo command.
+
+ -c Command mode. Next argument (if present) is the command to run, any
+ remaining arguments become arguments to the command. With no arguments
+ after -c, a shell is spawned. This creates a pseudo-tty, so the com‐
+ mand can be interactive.
ENVIRONMENT
+ SLOWBAUD_BPS
+ Can be used to set the bit rate, when no <bits-per-sec> argument is
+ used.
+
SLOWBAUD_DEBUG
- Set this (to any value) in the environment to see verbose debug output on
- stderr, including timing accuracy stats.
+ Set this (to any value) in the environment to see verbose debug output
+ on stderr, including timing accuracy stats.
- SHELL Standard *nix environment variable, used to determine what shell to run when -c
- is given with no <command>. If unset, /bin/sh is used.
+ SHELL Standard *nix environment variable, used to determine what shell to run
+ when -c is given with no <command>. If unset, /bin/sh is used.
EXIT STATUS
- Without -c, 0 for success, non-zero on any error such as nonexistent/unreadable files.
- slowbaud exits immediately on such errors (this is unlike cat(1)).
+ Without -c, 0 for success, non-zero on any error such as nonexistent/unread‐
+ able files. slowbaud exits immediately on such errors (this is unlike cat(1)).
- With -c, exit status is that of the child process, or 127 if the child process
- couldn't be spawned (e.g. command not found). Of course, the child process could also
- exit with status 127...
+ With -c, exit status is that of the child process, or 127 if the child process
+ couldn't be spawned (e.g. command not found). Of course, the child process
+ could also exit with status 127...
NOTES
- We can't really insert a delay between the bits of a byte, since I/O is done with byte
- granularity. For calculation purposes, <bits-per-sec> is divided by 10 to get bytes
- per second. This simulates "8-N-1": one start bit, 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop
- bit (total of 10 bits per byte).
-
- The timing code works by calculating how long to sleep after each character (in
- microseconds), but actually sleeping slightly less than that, then busy-waiting until
- the rest of the interval expires. At slower bitrates, this works well, and the CPU
- overhead is barely noticeable (at least on reasonably fast modern systems).
-
- The timing error will almost always result in the bitrate being slightly too slow at
- lower bitrates and slightly too fast at higher ones.
-
- Timing is more accurate on Linux than OSX. It's done with getitimer() and sigwait().
- This works out to be slightly more accurate than using usleep() on both Linux and OSX.
- It would be possible to use the realtime timer_create() and clock_gettime() API on
- Linux, for possibly even better accuracy, but OSX doesn't have these (and I want to be
- portable).
-
- If this were a truly useful application, it would be worth trying to decrease latency
- further, with realtime process scheduling. I didn't do this because slowbaud is just a
- toy, and because the RT stuff tends to be unportable and require elevated privileges
- (root, or something like setrtlimit or extended filesystem attributes to manage capa‐
- bilities).
-
- About the name... I'm aware that "baud" is not synonymous with bps. I just think
- "slowbaud" sounds better than "slowbps", as a name. Anyway the stty command on Linux
- misuses the term ("speed 38400 baud"), so I'm in good company.
+ The bitrate has a range of 1 to 500000. Timing accuracy depends on your OS,
+ kernel config (HZ and/or NO_HZ on Linux), and system load. No "fancy" tech‐
+ niques like realtime scheduling or hardware event timers are used. At bitrates
+ up to 57600, on a typical unloaded Linux system, the timing should be at least
+ 99.7% accurate.
+
+ We can't really insert a delay between the bits of a byte, since I/O is done
+ with byte granularity. For calculation purposes, <bits-per-sec> is divided by
+ 10 to get bytes per second. This simulates "8-N-1": one start bit, 8 data
+ bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit (total of 10 bits per byte).
+
+ The timing code works by calculating how long to sleep after each character
+ (in microseconds), but actually sleeping slightly less than that, then
+ busy-waiting until the rest of the interval expires. At slower bitrates, this
+ works well, and the CPU overhead is barely noticeable (at least on reasonably
+ fast modern systems).
+
+ The timing error will almost always result in the bitrate being slightly too
+ slow at lower bitrates and slightly too fast at higher ones.
+
+ Timing is more accurate on Linux than OSX. It's done with getitimer() and sig‐
+ wait(). This works out to be slightly more accurate than using usleep() on
+ both Linux and OSX. It would be possible to use the realtime timer_create()
+ and clock_gettime() API on Linux, for possibly even better accuracy, but OSX
+ doesn't have these (and I want to be portable).
+
+ If this were a truly useful application, it would be worth trying to decrease
+ latency further, with realtime process scheduling. I didn't do this because
+ slowbaud is just a toy, and because the RT stuff tends to be unportable and
+ require elevated privileges (root, or something like setrtlimit or extended
+ filesystem attributes to manage capabilities).
+
+ About the name... I'm aware that "baud" is not synonymous with bps. I just
+ think "slowbaud" sounds better than "slowbps", as a name. Anyway the stty com‐
+ mand on Linux misuses the term ("speed 38400 baud"), so I'm in good company.
BUGS
- With -c, signals aren't handled gracefully. Window size changes (SIGWINCH) don't get
- propagated to the child process, and pressing ^C doesn't interrupt the process. Yet.
+ With -c, signals aren't handled gracefully. Window size changes (SIGWINCH)
+ don't get propagated to the child process, and pressing ^C doesn't interrupt
+ the process. Yet.
COPYRIGHT
- slowbaud is copyright 2021, B. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>. Released under the WTFPL.
- See http://www.wtfpl.net/txt/copying/ for details.
+ slowbaud is copyright 2021, B. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>. Released under the
+ WTFPL. See http://www.wtfpl.net/txt/copying/ for details.
-0.0.1 2021-07-21 SLOWBAUD(1)
+0.0.1 2021-07-21 SLOWBAUD(1)