GPSMAN(1)

GPSMAN(1) 💖 — the gpsman manual page, bestie edition

okay so welcome to gpsman, the User Commands page, and honestly? it's giving legendary. this is the manual for GPS Manager and i'm gonna walk you through every single crumb of it, no skips, no skimming, because you deserve the full lore 🫶

---

✨ NAME ✨

gpsman — a (graphical) manager of GPS data 💅

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

gpsman [-dev [usb=]DEVICE]
gpsman [OPTIONS] COMMAND [COMMAND_ARGS]

two whole forms, two whole vibes, pick your fighter 🎀

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

gpsman GPS Manager (everyone calls it GPSMan) is a graphical manager of GPS data that makes possible the preparation, inspection and edition of GPS data in a friendly environment. and by friendly i mean genuinely friendly, not corporate-friendly. GPSMan supports communication and real-time logging with Garmin, Lowrance and Magellan receivers, and it also accepts real-time logging information in NMEA 0183 from any GPS receiver. any. periodt.

🚨 important bestie: to communicate with the GPS port, the user must have been granted read/write permissions for the corresponding device. no permissions, no talking to your receiver, that's just the rules 😭

for use in graphical mode, GPSMan is normally invoked in the first form above, where the usb= prefix to the device path enforces the use of the Garmin USB protocol. the use in this mode is not further described here — a full description is given in the User Manual available along with the GPSMan distribution. so if you want the graphical-mode deep dive, that's where it lives, iykyk 📖

GPSMan can also be used in command line mode (with no graphical interface except with the read and start travel commands), in which case it must be invoked in the second form above. the sections below address this mode. that's what we're doing here. let's go 🔥

---

✨ EXIT STATUS ✨

in non-graphical mode GPSMan exits with either a 0 if COMMAND was successfully executed, or a 1 if not. so it's a binary situation, very demure, very straightforward 💅

some commands will write information to the standard output channel. error messages can possibly be written to the standard error channel, but most of the errors will not be explained. yes bestie, most. as in, the tool will simply not tell you what went wrong 😭

🫶 if you're in doubt, use the graphical mode</u> to see if there are problems with files or the receiver. that's the official advice and honestly it's solid advice.

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

so apart from the -dev option, all other options are only for use in non-graphical mode. keep that in mind before you start throwing flags around, bestie.

• -dev DEVICE — gives the device path. that's it, that's the whole job 🎀
• -log — creates a log file of the low-level communication under the name logfile in the GPSMan user directory. low-level comms receipts, iconic.
• -rec Garmin | Lowrance | Magellan — changes the brand of the receiver. ⚠️ NOTE: at present will only work with Garmin. this option can be useful to override the options in the preferences file; cannot be used with the readput command, nor with the -prefs option, and cannot occur after the -prot option. so many rules but we respect them 🙈
• -prefs PREFSFILE — gives the path for an alternative preferences file (read after the user preferences file); cannot be used with the -rec option. them's the terms.
• -prot PROTOCOL — selects the protocol to be used for connecting to the receiver; cannot occur before the -rec option; the show protocols command can be used to find out which protocols are available. cute little hint, take it 🦋

💀 options not related with COMMAND will be silently ignored. silently. no warning, no nothing. she's just not gonna acknowledge them.

---

✨ NAME=VALUE ARGUMENTS ✨

some commands accept parameters in the form NAME=VALUE. the term PARAM, when used here referring to arguments of a command, has always this meaning. consistency queen 👑

🚨 care should be taken if the value part is a string with spaces (or other characters with special meaning for the shell or system command interpreter) — in which case quotes or some other form of quoting should be used. protect your strings bestie, the shell is feral 😭

---

✨ GPSMAN COMMAND SUMMARY ✨

there is no room in a manual page to describe in detail the available commands. tragic, i know. the following list gives a synopsis for all of them, and the User Manual should be consulted for more information. so here's the full lineup, every single one, no crumbs left behind 💖

• is available — exits with 0. that's the whole thing, she just says yes ✨
• is connected — exits with 0 if a connection check with the receiver succeeds.
• show WHAT — writes help information to the standard output; WHAT is one of: datums, formats (data file formats), help, projections, protocols, symbols (waypoint symbols), transfs (coordinates transformations).
• haslib LIBRARY — checks availability of a library.
• getwrite INTYPES FORMAT [OUTTYPES] [OUTPARAMS] PATH — transfers data from the receiver to a file.
• readput FORMAT [INPARAMS] [INTYPES] PATH [OUTTYPES] — transfers data from a file to the receiver.
• getrtimelog PATH [INTERVAL] — gets the real-time log from the receiver and saves it to a file.
• getfix PATH [TIMEOUT] — gets the current fix data from the receiver and saves it to a file.
• getalmanac PATH — gets the current almanac data from the receiver and saves it to a file.
• read IN-FORMAT [PARAMS] [TYPES] PATH — reads a data file and launches the graphical interface. 👀 note: in GPSMan scripts the behaviour is different; see the exec command in the User Manual.
• start travel [INTERVAL] — launches the graphical interface and starts real-time logging, animation and travelling. main character energy fr fr 🚗✨
• translate FORMAT [INPARAMS] [INTYPES] PATH [HOWPARAMS] FORMAT [OUTPARAMS] [OUTTYPES] PATH — translates from a file format to another.
• project LATD LONGD DATUM PROJECTION [PARAMS] — writes to the standard output the projection of a point.
• georef IMGPATH TRANSF LATD LONGD LATD LONGD [LATD LONGD] DATUM X Y X Y [X Y] PROJECTION [PARAMS] — writes to the standard output a map information file.
• geopicts FORMAT [INPARAMS] INTYPE PATH [PROCPARAMS] [FORMAT] [OUTPARAMS] PATH PICTPATHS — geo-references files either based on their time-stamps and a given track, or by using the sequence of waypoints in a group.
• source PATH — executes a Tcl/Tk script.
• exec PATH — executes a GPSMan script.

---

✨ AUTHORS ✨

this manual page was written by Miguel Filgueiras <migfilg_AT_t-online.de> using a previous version by Rogerio Reis <rvr_AT_debian.org>. collaboration slay 💅

GPSMan: developed and maintained by Miguel Filgueiras, with contributions by Brian Baulch, Rogerio Reis, Andreas Lange, Alessandro Palmas, Niki Hammler, Martin Ostermann, Valere Robin, David Wolfskill, Rob Buitenhuis, Frank Kujawski, Tri Agus Prayitno, Matt Martin, Stefan Heinen, Heiko Thede, Sabine Broda, Alberto Morales, Martin Buck, David Kaplan, Jean H. Theoret, Paul Scorer, Nigel Orr, David Gardner, Nikolai Kosyakoff, Benoit Steiner, Sandor Laky, Alexander B. Preobrazhenskiy, Rudolf Martin. the whole group chat showed up for this one 🫶👑

---

✨ REPORTING BUGS ✨

report bugs to <migfilg_AT_t-online.de>. found a bug? tell Miguel, don't suffer in silence bestie 🙈

---

✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

Copyright (C) 1998-2013 by Miguel Filgueiras <migfilg_AT_t-online.de> and Rogerio Reis <rvr_AT_debian.org>

this is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License; a copy of this license is part of the distribution. 📜

the two GPSMan logos used by gpsman ara under Copyright (C) 1998-2013 by Miguel Filgueiras and are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. to view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

all other images used by gpsman ara under Copyright (C) 1998-2013 by Miguel Filgueiras and are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. to view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

---

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

Miguel Filgueiras, GPSMan User Manual, Version 6.4.4.2, October 2013. 📖✨

this manual, in both PDF and HTML, is part of the distribution of GPSMan and can be retrieved from the GPSMan site at

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpsman

it is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. to view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

---

and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀✨ this was gpsman version 6.4.4.2, from October 2013 — yeah she's an elder but she ATE and she's still serving. go log some tracks, kiss your receiver, and remember: read the User Manual, it's giving essential. mwah 💋💖🦋