/ 
Device-BusPirate-0.08
River stage one • 1 direct dependent • 1 total dependent
/ Device::BusPirate

NAME

Device::BusPirate - interact with a Bus Pirate device

DESCRIPTION

This module allows a program to interact with a Bus Pirate hardware electronics debugging device, attached over a USB-emulated serial port. In the following description, the reader is assumed to be generally aware of the device and its capabilities. For more information about the Bus Pirate see:

This module and its various component modules are based on Future, allowing either synchronous or asynchronous communication with the attached hardware device. For simple synchronous situations, the class may be used on its own, and any method that returns a Future instance should immediately call the get method on that instance to wait for and obtain the eventual result:

my $spi = $pirate->enter_mode( "SPI" )->get;

$spi->power( 1 )->get;
my $input = $spi->writeread_cs( $output )->get;

A truely-asynchronous program would be built using a subclass that overrides the basic read and sleep methods for some event loop or similar; these can then be chained using the then method:

my $input = $pirate->enter_mode( "SPI" )
  ->then( sub {
     my ( $spi ) = @_;

     $spi->power( 1 )->then( sub {
        $spi->writeread_cs( $output );
     });
  });

CONSTRUCTOR

$pirate = Device::BusPirate->new( %args )

Returns a new Device::BusPirate instance to communicate with the given device. Takes the following named arguments:

serial => STRING

Path to the serial port device node the Bus Pirate is attached to. If not supplied, the BUS_PIRATE environment variable is used; falling back on a default of /dev/ttyUSB0.

baud => INT

Serial baud rate to communicate at. Normally it should not be necessary to change this from its default of 115200.

METHODS

The following methods documented with a trailing call to ->get return Future instances.

$pirate->sleep( $timeout )->get

Returns a Future that will become ready after the given timeout (in seconds), unless it is cancelled first.

@result = $pirate->enter_mutex( $code )->get

Acts as a mutex lock, to ensure only one block of code runs at once. Calls to enter_mutex will be queued up; each $code block will only be invoked once the Future returned from the previous has completed.

Mode implementations should use this method to guard complete wire-level transactions, ensuring that multiple concurrent ones will not collide with each other.

$mode = $pirate->enter_mode( $modename )->get

Switches the attached device into the given mode, and returns an object to represent that hardware mode to interact with. This will be an instance of a class depending on the given mode name.

BB

The bit-banging mode. Returns an instance of Device::BusPirate::Mode::BB.

I2C

The I2C mode. Returns an instance of Device::BusPirate::Mode::I2C.

SPI

The SPI mode. Returns an instance of Device::BusPirate::Mode::SPI.

Once a mode object has been created, most of the interaction with the device would be done using that mode object, as it will have methods relating to the specifics of that hardware mode. See the classes listed above for more information.

$chip = $pirate->mount_chip( $chipname, %opts )->get

Constructs a "chip" object; a helper designed to communicate with some particular hardware device (usually a specific chip) attached to the Bus Pirate. This will be a subclass of Device::BusPirate::Chip, and will likely provide various methods specific to the operation of that particular device.

$chipname should match the name declared by the chip module, and other options passed in %opts will be passed to its constructor.

$pirate->start->get

Starts binary IO mode on the Bus Pirate device, enabling the module to actually communicate with it. Normally it is not necessary to call this method explicitly as it will be done by the setup code of the mode object.

$pirate->stop

Stops binary IO mode on the Bus Pirate device and returns it to user terminal mode. It may be polite to perform this at the end of a program to return it to a mode that a user can interact with normally on a terminal.

TODO

  • More modes - I2C, UART, 1-wire, raw-wire

  • Documentation/examples/actual implementations of truely-async subclass.

  • PWM, AUX frequency measurement and ADC support.

AUTHOR

Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk>