GRABSERIAL(1)

🎀 GRABSERIAL(1) 🎀

okay bestie, welcome to the General Commands Manual corner of the internet, where we're about to make serial consoles make sense. no cap, this one's a lil gem.

✨ NAME ✨

grabserial — Serial line reader 💖

like. that's it. that's the whole name. it reads serial lines. iconic behaviour honestly.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

grabserial

yes, just grabserial, that's the vibe. (there's more below tho, keep reading 🫶)

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so grabserial is this lil program that reads a serial port and writes the data straight to standard output. literally that simple, and that's the point. 💅

the main character energy purpose here is: you got a target board running Linux, it's yapping away on its serial console, and you wanna collect those messages and save them on a host machine. that's the job. that's the assignment. and it ate. 🔥

👑 USAGE 👑

grabserial [options] <config_file>

💖 OPTIONS 💖

okay so here's the full menu, no skips, no shortcuts, we're listing every single one:

• -h, --help — prints this message. the classic. the "help me bestie" flag.
• -d, --device=<devpath> — sets the device to read. default is '/dev/ttyS0'.
• -b, --baudrate=<val> — sets the baudrate. default is 115200.
• -w, --width=<val> — sets the data bit width. default is 8.
• -p, --parity=<val> — sets the parity. default is N.
• -s, --stopbits=<val> — sets the stopbits. default is 1.
• -x, --xonxoff — enables software flow control. default is off.
• -r, --rtscts — enables RTS/CTS flow control. default is off.
• -f, --force-reset — forces pyserial to reset device parameters. it's giving "do it anyway, I said what I said".
• --endtime=<secs> — ends the program after the specified seconds have elapsed. a lil timer, a lil goodbye. 🕐
• --command=<cmd> — sends a command to the port before reading. pregame behaviour fr fr.
• -t, --time — prints time for each line received. the time is when the first character of each line is received by grabserial.
• --systime — prints system time for each line received. the time is the absolute local time when the first character of each line is received by grabserial. yes, that's a different flavour of timestamp, don't @ me. ⭐
• -m, --match=<pat> — specifies a regular expression pattern to match to set a base time. time values for lines after the line matching the pattern will be relative to this base time. so like, reset the clock, cutie. 🎀
• -i, --instantpat=<pat> — specifies a regular expression pattern to have its time reported at end of run. works mid-line. lowkey sneaky, highkey useful.
• -q, --quitpat=<pat> — specifies a regular expression pattern to end the program. works mid-line. the "okay we're done here" flag. 💀
• -l, --launchtime — sets base time from launch of the program. t=0 is when you started, bestie.
• -o, --output=<name> — outputs data to the named file. saving the receipts. 📝
• -v, --verbose — shows verbose runtime messages. it will tell you things.
• -V, --version — shows version number and exits. quick lil flex then bye. ✨

🌈 Example 🌈

grabserial -e 30 -t -m ^Linux version.*

so what's happening here: this will grab serial input for 30 seconds, displaying the time for each line, and re-setting the base time when the line starting with "Linux version" is seen.

ngl that -m pattern is the moment. the second your board says "Linux version", the clock resets and everything after is measured from there. chef's kiss. 👑

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

this manual page was written by Nobuhiro Iwamatsu <iwamatsu@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). shoutout to them, absolute legend. 💜

aaaand that's the whole page!! MAY 2015 energy, GRABSERIAL(1) forever. go read some serial ports bestie, you got this 🦋✨