Hi community,
I'd like to announce a first preliminary and free OpenSource release of our device control library (DClib) and its mainly used protocol (network property protocol).
What is this? Let me give a quick outline:
Instead of...
- Writing C code and header files to implement control (register access, ..) of various embedded peripherals
- Designing a protocol and an API to map device properties into function calls
- Spending a lot of time on testing and maintaining growing variations of products
...this library enables you to:
- Write a low level register specification and a high level abstract property definition in XML (using a GUI editor)
- Bake compact C code and headers or generate documentation from that device description
- Maintain classes of devices using very few source files, allow to extend their properties any time while staying upward/downward compatible
- Control and 'test bench' all netpp-speaking devices using one client solution (via USB, Ethernet, serial, ...)
There are various solutions out there that might be considering doing this job (or a similar one), like: EDDL, Google protocol buffers, XMLRPC, GenICAM, etc.
We tried another approach that has the least complexity and minimum footprint to operate on bare metal firmware as well as on (uC)linux powered devices - while trying to keep it very generic. netpp/DClib has now been used for a few years by us and various customers - and I think it's time to let the baby go and see it grow on its own.
You can find more information and download links here:
Have fun,
- Martin