[Cialug] tornado-proofing your data?

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Dave J. Hala Jr. <dave at 58ghz.net> wrote:
> I still have yet to figure how to collect wind speed data using a linux
> box. Anyone know of some Linux software that collects data from a serial
> port and dumps it into a .csv file? At the moment, I take the .csv file
> from a windows box, copy it onto a thumb drive, carry it over to a linux
> box and import the data into a Mysql database.

I use python. For example:

import serial
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0',115200)

# my application won't start sending until prompted to do so
ser.write('1')

try:
    while (1):
        data = ser.readline().strip()
        try:
            T,X,Y,Z = data.split(',')

            do_something()

        except(ValueError):
            print data
            pass
except(KeyboardInterrupt):
    print "closing serial port..."
    ser.close()


I use this to read data from a microcontroller connected via USB
serial port. The data in my application comes in a somewhat CSV format
so I just split it using a comma.

do_something() for you could be insert the data into mysql directly.

If you decide to play with it and get stuck you should ask for help on
the list because I know there are a couple of us here that are into
this kind of thing. And because it's python you could start out
experimenting in Windows/sqlite and migrate to Linux/mysql pretty
easily.

Look into the timeout property for Serial if you have problems with it
hanging. (Thanks to Nathan Stein for that tip)

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode