I am learning C and decided to build a small LCD status panel for one of my servers. This server runs FreeBSD but I, as a matter of discipline, wants to keep the code portable, so I also test in Linux.
So I decided to try to build the code from this answer as a learning exercise: How to open, read, and write from serial port in C? I built the code from the answer by sawdust:
#define TERMINAL "/dev/ttyUSB0"
#include <errno.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <termios.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int set_interface_attribs(int fd, int speed)
{
struct termios tty;
if (tcgetattr(fd, &tty) < 0) {
printf("Error from tcgetattr: %s\n", strerror(errno));
return -1;
}
cfsetospeed(&tty, (speed_t)speed);
cfsetispeed(&tty, (speed_t)speed);
tty.c_cflag |= (CLOCAL | CREAD); /* ignore modem controls */
tty.c_cflag &= ~CSIZE;
tty.c_cflag |= CS8; /* 8-bit characters */
tty.c_cflag &= ~PARENB; /* no parity bit */
tty.c_cflag &= ~CSTOPB; /* only need 1 stop bit */
tty.c_cflag &= ~CRTSCTS; /* no hardware flowcontrol */
/* setup for non-canonical mode */
tty.c_iflag &= ~(IGNBRK | BRKINT | PARMRK | ISTRIP | INLCR | IGNCR | ICRNL | IXON);
tty.c_lflag &= ~(ECHO | ECHONL | ICANON | ISIG | IEXTEN);
tty.c_oflag &= ~OPOST;
/* fetch bytes as they become available */
tty.c_cc[VMIN] = 1;
tty.c_cc[VTIME] = 1;
if (tcsetattr(fd, TCSANOW, &tty) != 0) {
printf("Error from tcsetattr: %s\n", strerror(errno));
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
void set_mincount(int fd, int mcount)
{
struct termios tty;
if (tcgetattr(fd, &tty) < 0) {
printf("Error tcgetattr: %s\n", strerror(errno));
return;
}
tty.c_cc[VMIN] = mcount ? 1 : 0;
tty.c_cc[VTIME] = 5; /* half second timer */
if (tcsetattr(fd, TCSANOW, &tty) < 0)
printf("Error tcsetattr: %s\n", strerror(errno));
}
int main()
{
char *portname = TERMINAL;
int fd;
int wlen;
char *xstr = "Hello!\n";
int xlen = strlen(xstr);
fd = open(portname, O_RDWR | O_NOCTTY | O_SYNC);
if (fd < 0) {
printf("Error opening %s: %s\n", portname, strerror(errno));
return -1;
}
/*baudrate 115200, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit */
set_interface_attribs(fd, B115200);
//set_mincount(fd, 0); /* set to pure timed read */
/* simple output */
wlen = write(fd, xstr, xlen);
if (wlen != xlen) {
printf("Error from write: %d, %d\n", wlen, errno);
}
tcdrain(fd); /* delay for output */
/* simple noncanonical input */
do {
unsigned char buf[80];
int rdlen;
rdlen = read(fd, buf, sizeof(buf) - 1);
if (rdlen > 0) {
#ifdef DISPLAY_STRING
buf[rdlen] = 0;
printf("Read %d: \"%s\"\n", rdlen, buf);
#else /* display hex */
unsigned char *p;
printf("Read %d:", rdlen);
for (p = buf; rdlen-- > 0; p++)
printf(" 0x%x", *p);
printf("\n");
#endif
} else if (rdlen < 0) {
printf("Error from read: %d: %s\n", rdlen, strerror(errno));
} else { /* rdlen == 0 */
printf("Timeout from read\n");
}
/* repeat read to get full message */
} while (1);
}
The code builds fine and without warning. My Arduino is set to only clear the LCD screen if there's something new coming via serial, and it answers back OK when it updates the screen. I confirmed it works fine via screen.
For testing, I wrote manually some random characters to the screen and then launched the code. It works fine in Linux, but in FreeBSD the LCD goes blank.
So I launched lldb to see what's going on, set a few breakpoints in the relevant places and started going through the code. I couldn't see any problems and, to my surprise, the LCD was showing the test text. But whenever I launch it directly, I only get a blank screen. I inserted a few sleeps in the code to see if, by any chance, FreeBSD was not running something too fast or screwing up with timers, but nothing helped.
Do you have any ideas on how I could better leverage lldb to find out what is going on or an idea of what the problem could be?
