Jeremy Coulter wrote:
Hi All.
I have got an app. that gets data from devices via the comport.
60% if not more of the data from these devices is similar or easy to
deal with, like dates and times, but other info can be specific to a
device, and i have to normalize it into a format that I want.

Could you somehow specify all your known interfaces, then determine whether you can detect the device based on that?

So in a data file you'd have :

devicetype=thingy
char1=X
dataformat:
char2-11=date
char12-16=currenttemp
char17-19=unused
...
devicetype=widget
char1=Y
...
devicetype=acme widget
char2=0

Then you could do:

if Str[1] = 'X' then   // this is a thingy
// so we know :
// first 10 chars are date
// next 5 chars are current temperature
// next 3 chars are meaningless
// ....
if Str[1] = 'Y' then   // this is a widget
  if Str[2] = '0' then // this is an ACME brand widget

In effect, building up your own language for defining comport
interfaces?
Then upgrading your app would mean only updating the definition
file.

Actually, you could even go further in that file include what happens
to each segment of the string ie:

devicetype=thingy
char1=X
dataformat
char2-11=date
dataformat:
char2-11=insert into device_table.date_of_access
char12-16=insert into device_table.current_temp


Or have I gone way off track?


Cheers, Kurt.

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