Host UART driver

Introduction

Implements a UART driver to connect via TCP socket, allowing terminal emulation using telnet, or directly to local host serial device (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0, COM4, etc.)

If not otherwise reassigned, UART0 output is sent to the console and keyboard input is written to the UART0 receive queue.

Configuration Variables

ENABLE_HOST_UARTID

To enable emulation for a UART, set this value to the numbers required. You would normally add this to a project’s component.mk file.

For example:

ENABLE_HOST_UARTID = 0 1

If setting it on the command line, remember to use quotes:

make ENABLE_HOST_UARTID="0 1"

See Basic Serial which uses both serial ports like this.

HOST_UART_PORTBASE

The base port number to use for telnet. Default is 10000, which corresponds to UART0.

This is passed to the command line --uartport option.

HOST_UART_OPTIONS

By default, this value combines the above options.

Allows full customisation of UART command-line options for make run.

TCP port emulation

Set required ports for emulation using the ENABLE_HOST_UARTID, then execute make run.

Note

As an alternative to make run, you can run the compiled application manually like this:

out/Host/debug/firmware/app --pause --uart=0 --uart=1

Now start a telnet session for each serial port, in separate command windows:

telnet localhost 10000
telnet localhost 10001

In the application window, press Enter. This behaviour is enabled by the pause option, which stops the emulator after initialisation so telnet can connect to it. Without pause you’ll lose any serial output at startup.)

Note

For Windows users, putty is a good alternative to telnet. It also has options for things like carriage-return/linefeed translation (”\n” -> “\r\n”). Run using:

putty telnet://localhost:10000

Port numbers are allocated sequentially from 10000. If you want to use different port numbers, set HOST_UART_PORTBASE.

Physical device connection

Override HOST_UART_OPTIONS adding the –device option. For example:

make run HOST_UART_OPTIONS="--uart=0 --device=/dev/ttyUSB0"

The --device option must follow the --uart option. Another example:

make run HOST_UART_OPTIONS="--uart=0 --device=/dev/ttyUSB0 --uart=1 --device=/dev/ttyUSB1"

The port is opened when uart_init() gets called.

The default baud rate is whatever the application has requested. This can be overridden as follows:

make run HOST_UART_OPTIONS="--uart=0 --device=/dev/ttyUSB0 --baud=921600"

For Windows, substitute the appropriate device name, e.g. COM4 instead of /dev/ttyUSB0.

Note

If necessary, add ENABLE_HOST_UARTID= to prevent telnet windows from being created.

Console I/O may be assigned to a different port like this:

make run HOST_UART_OPTIONS="--uart=1 --device=console"