Save trice COBS encoded data on target and view it later on PC

[tlsvc]

Hi Thomas,

I just stumbled upon this very interesting project via your article on memfault.com. Looks like really great work!

I'm wondering if trice could be used to save logs on the target "in field" and view those logs later on by using the PC tool. So is there an option in the PC tool to load the COBS data from a file? Or would I have to emulate a serial port?

Thanks in advance :)

Tristan

[rokath]

Hi Tristan, sorry for the delayed aswer. I just came accross your question. The anwer is yes:

trice l -p FILE -args filename

This is possible in v0.48.0.

[tlsvc]

Thank you very much, that looks great!

[rokath]

For flash memory storage you could modify the encoding to reduce the data amount further. You can drop the COBS encoding and padding. Also no need for location information and maybe timestamps.

[rokath]

I opened an issue: #260

[tlsvc]

Well, presumably I will use a SD-Card using FatFs to store the data, so flash memory space is not really a relevant constraint for me. I think it makes sense to just stick to the existing encoding and use it as a robust binary file format.

[rokath]

Anyway TREX and TCOBS are planned now for the future. The legacy encoding stays as option. See TriceV1.0 Spec draft in doc Folder.

[heezes]

Hi @rokath ,
I have been successfully using trice for saving device logs on memory and uploading it later for analysis. It works wonderfully.
Although i have one issue when using trice to decode the file is does not detect the EOF. Is it because of the software or there's some issue with the encoded file

[rokath]

The trice tool normally expects endless data. So, if an EOF is detected, it tries to read again a bit later. If you descibe your case in more detail, I could try to find a solution.

[heezes]

I'm using trice statements to log assertion and application code fault management. The trice data stream is stored in a file in Nand memory and is being uploaded to a remote server. Now what i usually do is download. decode(trice) and analyze the file. For automating the process i want the trice decoding to detect EOF so that I go ahead with analyze step, but due to the current behavior of trice software I'm stuck with the manual flow.

[rokath]

For JLink RTT, one use case is endless file reading. I could provide an additional CLI switch -EOFStop, but there are already a lot of switches. -port FILE_UNTIL_END instead of -port FILE I like more but the name is too long. Or simply -port EOF? There is also the possibility to use the -args switch. But it carries the filename. What do you think?

[heezes]

I'm ok with any method which stops decoding as soon as EOF is detected. Although I think -args switch will provide more options to the user

[rokath]

You are right. We could take : as a delimiter between the filename and further optional switches inside the -args string. Would that be ok for your scripts? Only disadvantage: no file names with : in Linux. \0 would be more universal but maybe cause other issues.

[heezes]

How about using a simple whitespace bw arguments or -args "--name=file.bin --mode=EOF" could also be useful

[rokath]

Hi @heezes, I am sorry for my lousy mind! Please try -port FILEBUFFER instead of using -port FILE with the trice version you are using right now. It should do what you want.

[heezes]

I have downloaded the latest version but unfortunately things still are not working out. I have attached a til.json and raw file for you to check out as well. The trice does not exit after EOF.
NOTE: Change the trice.txt to trice.bin and til.txt to til.json as tbey were not attaching
til.txt
trice.txt

[rokath]

Thanks for the files. I'll check in the next days.

[heezes]

@rokath Any update on the issue?

[rokath]

Sorry, too busy right now. Hope next week to find time for this.

[heezes]

Cool. I wait for then.

[rokath]

PLease have a try with v0.49.2 and look at the closed issue #284.

[heezes]

Yeah its working. Thanks for the help!

[rokath]

:-)

[rokath]

With trice release v0.55.1 now TREX encoding with TCOBSv1 framing is default. This means less bytes per trice.