gpscat - dump the output from a GPS
Contents
Copying
This file is Copyright 2013 by the GPSD project
SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-clause
Description
gpscat is a simple program for logging and packetizing GPS data streams. It takes input from a specified
file or serial device (presumed to have a GPS attached) and reports to standard output. The program runs
until end of input or it is interrupted by ^C or other means. It does not terminate on a bad packet; this
is intentional.
In raw mode (the default) gpscat simply dumps its input to standard output. Nonprintable characters other
than ASCII whitespace are rendered as hexadecimal string escapes.
In packetizing mode, gpscat uses the same code as gpsd(8)'s packet sniffer to break the input into
packets. Packets are reported one per line; line breaks in the packets themselves are escaped.
This program is useful as a sanity checker when examining a new device. It can be used as a primitive
NMEA logger, but beware that (a) interrupting it likely to cut off output in mid-sentence, and (b) to
avoid displaying incomplete NMEA sentences right up next to shell prompts that often contain a $, raw
mode always emits an extra final linefeed.
Also, be aware that packetizing mode will produce useless results -- probably consuming the entirety of
input and appearing to hang -- if it is fed data that is not a sequence of packets of one of the known
types.
Name
gpscat - dump the output from a GPS
Options
The program accepts the following options:
-?, -h, --help
Display program usage and exit.
-DLVL, --debugLVL
In packetizer mode, enable progress messages from the packet getter. Probably only of interest to
developers testing packet getter changes. Higher arguments to -D produce more output.
-p, --packetizer
Invoke packetizer mode.
-sSPEED, --speedSPEED
Set the port’s baud rate (and optionally its parity and stop bits) to SPEED before reading. Argument
should begin with one of the normal integer baud rates (300, 1200, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, etc.).
It may be followed by an optional suffix [NOE][12] to set parity (None, Odd, Even) and stop bits (1
or 2). Specifying -s4800N1 is frequently helpful with unknown devices.
-t, --typeflag
Invoke packetizer mode, with the packet type and length (in parentheses) reported before a colon and
space on each line.
-V, --version
Display program version and exit.
Resources
Projectwebsite: https://gpsd.io/
Return Values
0
on success.
1
on failure
See Also
gpsd(8), gps(1), gpsfake(1). cgps(1)
Synopsis
gpscat [OPTIONS] file-or-serial-port
gpscat -h
gpscat -V
