Serialsniffer

By Author: Stefan Flache
Total Articles: 1
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Developers need exact information and are often forced to get access to serial ports for testing purpose.
The typical user of SerialSniffer is a software engineer. Most commonly an external device is connected to a PC, which is running a special application using a serial port. The external device may be: a sensor, a slide projector, a printer, a barcode scanner, … The serial connection has to be “ripped” and SerialSniffer is mounted in between the serial link. SerialSniffer will provide all data from one side of the connection to the other and vice versa, log all the data and, if applicable, manipulate them.

SerialSniffer
is a windows shareware to visualize data, which are exchanged over the serial ports (i.e. RS232 or RS422).
SerialSniffer gives you the possibility

to have a deep view inside the data. The data stream, which is exchange on the serial ports, is visualized by SerialSniffer. You also can determine which data comes from which port.
to log the data stream

to tunnel the serial port through the network ...
... br /> to exchange dedicated data parts from the data stream

to search for seldom data

to open a terminal dialog
to use symbols instead of raw data

SerialSniffer is very easy to use
Simply choose the type of connection (serial, network or virtual serial port), the parameters (i.e. baud rate) and open the connection.

Not only the standard baud rates (like 9600 baud) but also user defined baud rates can be used. It is also possible to translate between different baud rates, as both comports can be configured independently.
Comport names up to 'Com256:' are supported to use SerialSniffer on systems with a lot of serial ports (provided by additional adapters, IRDA, Bluetooth etc).

The complete configuration will be stored automatically on closing the application. The user can also store it in customized files to re-load it for recurrently tasks.

Practical example
Test of a complex system: a test specification exists; SerialSniffer logs all the data to a file, which is attached to the test protocol. But how to test, the system deals with errors on the serial link? If the worst comes to the worst, the system will crash. To test this, SerialSniffer gets a set of rules, which data is to be manipulated. I.e. some datasets may be shortened, some may contain additional data or the checksums are changed. In most cases, it is not allowed to integrate the changes to the device under test, because you will not test the original system anymore. Using SerialSniffer, you are no longer forced to do so.
Practical example
Once, we had the mission to develop a trip recorder for a ferryboat. The main computer of the ship dumps all the data on a serial port without a return line (one way street for the data). During the development, we were not able to travel with the ship all day long. So we recorded the data with the SerialRecorder of SerialSniffer (similar to a traditional tape) and did a playback as often as needed.