Difference between revisions of "TODO"

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** There are possible issues if no libusb-device is enabled (e.g. only OLS or only demo).
** There are possible issues if no libusb-device is enabled (e.g. only OLS or only demo).
** There may be issue if none of the drivers is enabled, print useful error in that case(?)
** There may be issue if none of the drivers is enabled, print useful error in that case(?)
* libsigrok.h/libsigrokdecode.h: Only list public API functions.
** Prefix all public functions with sigrok_ or sigrokdecode_.
** Most functions should return SIGROK_OK or SIGROK_ERR_* (same for LIBSIGROK_OK etc). Some may return a string or NULL upon error, etc.


== sigrok 0.2 features ==
== sigrok 0.2 features ==

Revision as of 04:10, 15 January 2011

sigrok 0.1 release-critical issues

sigrok 0.1 comprises only sigrok-cli, i.e. GUI and protocol decoders are not part of the release.

  • Ensure that segfaults are rare / non-existing in CLI. Use code reviews and valgrind or similar to check.
  • Windows port
    • At least a working sigrok-cli with the demo driver is required.
    • Implement anykey.c replacement.
  • Update sigrok-cli man page.
    • Document --continuous option.
    • Document --input-file option.
    • Add examples of basic usage with -o samplerate.
  • Make sure all output modules handle unknown DF types gracefully (problem in event handlers)
  • Temporarily remove non-functional options from CLI
    • PDs
    • session saving/loading
  • cli: pack list of drivers, modules etc into one option which displays all of those. Update manpage accordingly.
  • libsigrok, libsigrokdecode: Proper shared libs setup and version numbers to be able to handle API/ABI compatibility issues sanely later.
  • Ensure that "make distcheck" works fine, and that you can build sigrok using that generated tarball (i.e. no missing files etc).
  • Make sure all output formats work OK and there are no segfaults.
    • Test that they're not corrupted by stray errors printed on stdout instead of stderr.
    • Test all of the above without SIGROK_DEBUG, with SIGROK_DEBUG=1, and SIGROK_DEBUG=2.
  • Make sure all combinations of --enable-*/--disable-* options works for configure.
    • There are possible issues if no libusb-device is enabled (e.g. only OLS or only demo).
    • There may be issue if none of the drivers is enabled, print useful error in that case(?)
  • libsigrok.h/libsigrokdecode.h: Only list public API functions.
    • Prefix all public functions with sigrok_ or sigrokdecode_.
    • Most functions should return SIGROK_OK or SIGROK_ERR_* (same for LIBSIGROK_OK etc). Some may return a string or NULL upon error, etc.

sigrok 0.2 features

General

  • sigrok uses uint64_t as an internal datatype to represent a sample, limiting the number of probes on supported hardware to 64. But high-end logic analyzers can have hundreds of probes. A solution would be to switch to either a roll-our-own byte array type, or use GMP. In any case, the overhead of switching over shouldn't be too bad: the filter code and frontend datafeed callback functions will need to use it, but hardware drivers should have enough with a couple of lightweight wrappers.

libsigrok

  • Fix/workaround libusb 1.0 Windows port issues:
    • Device renumeration not yet supported (needed for FX2 based LAs)
    • File descriptor / socket based polling not supported in Windows. Workaround (short-term): Use a thread in sigrok.
  • Session loading from file.
  • sigrok_errno:
    • Most backend functions return status as an integer, which is SIGROK_OK if all went well, or SIGROK_ERR_* and similar if an error occurred.
    • However there is no way to pass any information back as to what went wrong — and this is important for user-friendliness.
    • Perhaps an error code is not enough; maybe something like sigrok_errno(errorcode, "unsupported device") is better.
    • Both the cmdline and GUI interfaces need this, really, so it should be a backend library thing.
  • Make sure all optional components are really optional in the build system:
    • Only require Python if the users wants protocol decoders, the rest should also build/compile/run fine without Python installed.
    • ...
  • Add output for latex package tikz-timing

Hardware drivers

  • Clean up device-specific globals in hardware drivers, to properly permit multiple devices per driver.

Open-source firmware for the FX2 devices

The Cypress FX2-based devices, such as the Saleae Logic and the USBee SX, use only a minimal vendor-provided firmware. The only thing it really does is set the sample rate and turn on the chip's auto-mode. Nevertheless, the vendors provide the firmware as a binary blob, with no source.

It would be great if sigrok could ship with an own firmware implementation for these devices. Some links:

  • SDCC, the Small Devices C Compiler, is a compiler specifically suited to small MCUs, and has support for the 8051 core in the FX2.
  • fx2lib is an open-source library for writing firmware on the FX2. It has a number of interesting functions, including implementing custom USB vendor commands.
  • GNU Radio's USRP2 board has an FX2 on it, and GNU Radio has extensive custom firmware for it.

Windows installer

  • Add support for downloading/installing the Python Windows installer.