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                    GPSLOGGER      

gpsLogger does the following:

  1. Monitors a serial port for NMEA sentences with GPS time and position information.

  2. Optionally sets the computer time-of-day according to valid incoming GPS timekeeping. If PPS is available, gpsLogger can use it to have the system time track the GPS device time on a continual basis. It isn't yet as sophisticated as "ntpd" in this regards, but can provide a very good time of day reference anyway.

  3. Outputs a log of GPS position with respect to system time to or a log file. (Logging can be disabled)

  4. Publishes the current GPS position (and time of the fix) to shared memory using the routines defined in "gpsPub.h".

FILES:

README.txt - this file.

gpsLogger.html - gpsLogger User Guide web page (more detailed info than here)

gpsLogger.cpp - gpsLogger program source code (C++)

nmeaParse.h - Routines for parsing NMEA sentences nmeaParse.cpp

gpsPub.h - Routines for GPS position publish/subscribe gpsPub.cpp (using shared memory)

gpsClient.cpp - Example source code for using GPSSubscribe()

gpsFaker.cpp - Program to publish "fake" GPS position to shared memory.

gpsReport.pl - Perl script to analyze gpsLogger logs and (optionally) a file that is a capture of stdin/stdout via "gpsLogger [options] > 2>&1. It collects statistics on how many of each of the different errors occured, whether time went backwards, if it went forward by more than 2 seconds, etc. Type "gpsReport.pl --help" for usage/syntax.

TO BUILD:
g++ -o gpsLogger gpsLogger.cpp gpsPub.cpp nmeaParse.cpp

USAGE:

gpsLogger [set][pps][force][check][gps35][noLog][log ] [debug][device ][speed ] [pubFile ]

set - cause "gpsLogger" to set system time upon reciept of first valid NMEA sentence with active GPS position fix or if the "pps" option is used, continually adjust time to track GPS time.

force - cause "gpsLogger" to perform a hard "settimeofday()" to force the system clock into sync with GPS immediately instead of gradually converging towards GPS time using the system "adjtime()" function. (Note that if the delta(systemTime, gpsTime) is greater than or equal to one second, "gpsLogger" will force the time to hard adjust)

pps - cause "gpsLogger" to wait for pulse-per-second (PPS) signal on the serial port DCD (or optionally the CTS) pin.

cts - cause "gpsLogger" to use clear-to-send (CTS) signal for PPS signal instead of default DCD pin.

invert - By default, "gpsLogger" waits for a low-to-hi transition of the PPS signal for pulse detection. The "invert" option here inverts this logic to look for a hi-to-low transition instead.

gps35 - cause "gpsLogger" to send configuration sentence for Garmin GPS-35 units to turn on PPS operation. (This may work with other Garmin units, too)

check - require that received NMEA sentences have a checksum or else ignore the sentence

noLog - disables logging of position.

log - log to file instead of

debug - cause "gpsLogger" to output additional debugging information to stderr

device - Monitor . "/dev/ttyS0" is the default.

speed - Set serial port baud rate to 4800 or 9600. 4800 is the default.

pubFile - Name of file with GPSPub shared memory identifier. Default is "/tmp/gpskey"

KNOWN ISSUES:

  1. Add a "bool GPSSubscriptionIsValid(GPSHandle gpsHandle)" function to GPSPub routines so client can check to make sure the shared memory segment is still being actively updated ... i.e. check, using "shmctl()" to see if the segment is marked for destruction. This way the clients can detect if "gpsLogger" has been killed.