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LinPac - Packet Radio Terminal for Linux
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.28
(c) Martin Cooper KD6YAM 2020
(c) David Ranch KI6ZHD (linpac@trinnet.net) 2002 - 2020
(c) 1998 - 2001 by Radek Burget OK2JBG
External Application Programming Guide
Contents
1 Introduction
2 What is an external program?
3 Basic concepts of the API
4 How applications communicate with LinPac
5 Using the application library
5.1 The simplest application
6 Application programming
6.1 Events
6.2 Sending and receiving events
6.3 Synchronization
6.4 Shared variables and configuration
6.5 Connection status
6.6 Event usage examples
6.6.1 Connecting to a remote station
6.6.2 Using LinPac commands in programs
7 The application library interface
7.1 Constants
7.2 Data structures
7.3 Functions
7.3.1 Uninterruptable versions of some system calls
7.3.2 Basic communication functions
7.3.3 Automatic event handling functions
7.3.4 Environment functions
7.3.5 User functions
7.3.6 Tool functions
7.3.7 Application information functions
8 The shell interface
8.1 Writing the script
8.1.1 Ensuring that LinPac is running
8.1.2 Accessing configuration and state
8.1.3 Executing commands
8.1.4 Simple shell example
8.2 Creating the command
1 Introduction
This guide is written for programmers who want to add some new functions
to LinPac. In the following text, basic knowledge of Linux programming is
assumed. Reading the LinPac User Manual before proceeding is also
recommended.
2 What is an external program?
An external program is a standard Linux application which uses LinPac to
communicate with remote stations. There are basically two types of LinPac
external programs:
* Standard Linux applications that use standard input and output
streams. These programs can be used without LinPac too. LinPac allows
redirection of the input stream (stdin) of the application and any of
the output streams (stdout, stderr) or both of them. LinPac can also
provide CR/LF conversions in these streams. These parameters are set
when adding the external program to LinPac - see Section 7, "Creating
new commands", in the User Manual.
* Applications written using LinPac's application interface. These
applications can share some information with LinPac, and they can
control almost all functions of LinPac.
No special knowledge of LinPac is needed for creating the first type of
programs, because no LinPac functions are used. The remainder of this
guide is dedicated to the second type of applications.
3 Basic concepts of the API
The LinPac application interface is based on events. Every action in
LinPac, such as pressing a key, receiving data, executing a command, etc.,
is represented by a data structure called an event, which describes
exactly what happened. LinPac's internal structure consists of separate
objects which communicate with each other using these events. Each object
provides its own functionality, and often generates events. For example,
the object Keyscan produces an event each time any key is pressed.
All the events generated by any object are put into the common event
queue. The LinPac kernel simply takes the events from the queue one by one
and sends them to all the objects (including the one that generated the
event). Thus each event generated by any part of LinPac is forwarded to
all of the objects. The reaction of each object fully depends on its
functionality, but of course it can include generation of other events.
The list of LinPac internal objects and their names can be found in the
file objects.txt.
An additional feature of the API is a shared variable environment. This is
a set of variables that is shared with LinPac; the values are
automatically synchronized with all the external programs. These variables
are accessed using special functions of the API as described below.
4 How applications communicate with LinPac
LinPac uses TCP/IP sockets for communication with external programs
(applications). The connection is always initiated by the application
after it starts. There are basically two ways that an application may be
started:
* The application is started by LinPac, through being associated with a
LinPac command. In this case LinPac registers the channel on which the
application was started and expects the connection attempt from the
application. After the application initializes and contacts LinPac, it
is provided with the working channel and whether it was started by a
remote or local user. LinPac may also redirect the input and output
streams of the application (depending upon LinPac settings).
* The application is started without using LinPac. In this case LinPac
assumes that the application runs on channel 0 and was started by the
local user. The input and output streams of the application are not
redirected.
In both cases, the start of an application causes the creation of a new
object in LinPac called an event gate. This object represents the
application within LinPac. Bearing in mind the previous chapter, this
means that the application is forwarded all of the events generated by any
LinPac object, and all of the events generated by the application are
forwarded to all LinPac objects.
NOTE: All of the communication via TCP/IP sockets is provided by the
LinPac application library. The user application should not attempt to
access the sockets directly.
5 Using the application library
During LinPac installation, the application library liblinpac is created
and installed by default to /usr/local/lib. The interface to this library
is contained in the file lpapp.h, which is installed by default to
/usr/local/include/linpac. The next chapter illustrates how to use the
library within a user application.
5.1 The simplest application
The following application example just tries to contact LinPac, and prints
the result.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <linpac/lpapp.h>
int main()
{
if (lp_start_appl())
{
printf("Application started\n");
sleep(10);
printf("Application finished\n");
lp_end_appl();
}
else
{
printf("LinPac is not running\n");
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The function lp_start_appl() tries to contact LinPac and returns 1 in case
of success or 0 when a connection to LinPac cannot be made (probably
because it's not running). This function should precede the usage of any
other application library functions.
The function lp_end_appl() closes the connection to LinPac.
To compile this example, use:
$ gcc -o test1 test1.c -llinpac
This example just detects if LinPac is running, and it can be executed
directly from the shell. When running from the shell, no streams are
redirected to LinPac, and the application appears to run on channel 0 of
LinPac. This is useful for some applications that are used to control
LinPac from outside. However this is not a typical use case.
For most applications, it is better to copy the executable to the
$LINPACDIR/bin directory and then add it to the file
$LINPACDIR/bin/commands as described in the User Manual. After this, the
application can be executed as a LinPac command. In this scenario, the
streams are properly redirected and the application output is visible in
the LinPac QSO window. It is also possible to select the channel on which
to run the application.
NOTE: The LinPac application library (liblinpac) can be linked without
problems with both C and C++ code.
6 Application programming
6.1 Events
LinPac is completely driven by events. Each part of LinPac, including
applications, can generate events to inform other parts (internal modules
or applications) that something has happened. Each event is sent to all
LinPac components and applications. For example when some station connects
to some LinPac channel, the internal AX.25 interface generates an event
reporting that the station has connected and includes its callsign. All
components and applications now know who has connected, and they can take
some actions. For example, the output window prints information about the
connection, the macro processor executes the cinit.mac macro, and so on.
Each application can handle all of the events too, and can generate events
which are handled by other components.
An event is represented by the following structure:
struct Event
{
int type;
int chn;
int x,y;
char ch;
void *data;
};
The meaning of each field is as follows:
type
Specifies the type of the event. Actually it determines what
happened. There is a symbolic constant defined for each known
event type.
chn
Specifies the channel to which the event applies. For example, if
the type of the event specifies that some data was received, the
chn field contains the number of the channel which has received
that data. There are many events that apply for all the channels.
For those events, this field is not significant.
x, y
The meaning of these fields depends on the event type. The y field
is usually not used, other than by some internal events.
ch
This field is used only by some internal events.
data
Depends on the type of the event. It usually points to some string
data or a char buffer.
All of the event types are described in the event list.
6.2 Sending and receiving events
For sending events the following function is used:
int lp_emit_event(int chn, int type, int x, void *data);
This generates a new event using the specified values. Each argument
corresponds to one of the fields in the Event structure.
There are two modes for handling incoming events:
a) Reading each event on demand
This mode is started by the lp_event_handling_off() call. In this mode,
events are read explicitly using the function:
int get_event(Event *ev);
This function returns 0 when no event is available. When an event is
available, it returns 1 and fills the Event structure with the received
event data.
WARNING #1: The data field in your Event structure must point to a
dynamically allocated buffer. The size of the buffer is reallocated
automatically after receiving an event. When the data field is set to
NULL, a new buffer is allocated. This field must be initialized.
WARNING #2: In this mode, the application must read all events. It is not
a good idea to stop reading events, because the event queue may overflow.
LinPac will automatically kill the application when the event queue
exceeds some reasonable number of events.
b) Automatic event processing
This mode is started by the lp_event_handling_on() call. All events are
read automatically. Programmers can define their own function that will be
called automatically when an event occurs. When no such function is
defined, all events are discarded.
The event handling function must have following prototype:
void my_event_handler(Event *ev);
(The function name may be different.) After initializing the application,
the event handling function must be registered using the function:
lp_set_event_handler()
from the application library.
The following example is an application that prints the types of all
events received and stops when an EV_ABORT event is received. This event
can be generated using the :ABort command in LinPac.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <linpac/lpapp.h>
int aborted = 0;
//User event handling function. This function is called each time
//an event occurs
void my_event_handler(Event *ev)
{
printf("The event of type %i has been received\n", ev->type);
if (ev->type == EV_ABORT) aborted = 1;
}
int main()
{
if (lp_start_appl())
{
lp_event_handling_on(); //turn on automatic event handling
lp_set_event_handler(my_event_handler); //define own event handler
printf("Application started\n");
printf("Stop with the ':Abort' command\n");
do ; while(!aborted); //wait until application is aborted
printf("Application finished\n");
lp_end_appl();
}
else
{
printf("LinPac is not running\n");
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This example contains "active waiting" (the do ; while(...) construction).
This is very ugly and inefficient. For this reason, the LinPac API offers
an alternative for waiting for events, namely the lp_wait_event()
function. Let's change the example to use this function:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <linpac/lpapp.h>
int main()
{
if (lp_start_appl())
{
lp_event_handling_on(); //turn on automatic event handling
printf("Application started\n");
printf("Stop with the ':Abort' command\n");
lp_wait_event(lp_channel(), EV_ABORT); //wait for the abort event
printf("Application finished\n");
lp_end_appl();
}
else
{
printf("LinPac is not running\n");
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING: Note that some system calls may be interrupted when an event is
received. An interrupted system call returns an error result (for example
the read() call returns -1), sets errno to EAGAIN, and must be called
again. To avoid this, use the interrupt-safe versions of the system calls
contained in this application library. (See Chapter 7.3.1.)
6.3 Synchronization
An event generated by an application is sent to all modules and
applications, including the application that generated the event. When
there is a need to wait until the event is accepted by LinPac, the
simplest way is to wait until the event we have sent is received back.
For testing that all events were processed, there is an EV_VOID event. It
is not handled by any module. After sending all events, just generate an
EV_VOID event and wait until it returns. After that, you can be assured
that all previous events have been processed.
6.4 Shared variables and configuration
Each shared variable is denoted by its name (string) and channel number.
Each variable has a value represented by a string (char[]). Access to
these variables is provided by following functions:
void lp_set_var(int chn, const char *name, const char *value)
Changes the value of the variable. If the variable doesn't exist,
it is created.
char *lp_get_var(int chn, const char *name)
Reads the value of the variable. Returns NULL if the variable
doesn't exist.
void lp_del_var(int chn, const char *name)
Deletes the variable.
void lp_clear_var_names(int chn, const char *prefix)
Deletes all variables with the specified name.
The value of each variable is automatically synchronized with LinPac and
all running applications. The variables whose names start with "_" are
reserved for system use. These variables can be used for obtaining system
configuration and status but it may be potentialy dangerous to change some
of these variables.
NOTE: Many of the variables contain boolean values. Their value is 1 when
true, 0 otherwise.
Currently the following system variables are defined (in channel 0):
_remote
1 when remote commands are enabled
_cbell
1 when connect sound is enabled
_knax
1 when sound signal for each frame is enabled
_def_port
default port name
_unportname
port name for unproto frames
_unport
port number for unproto frames
_info_level
status-line level (0 to 2)
_no_name
default station name
_timezone
local timezone name
_swap_edit
1 when swapedit is on
_fixpath
1 when fixpath is on
_daemon
1 when linpac works as a daemon
_monitor
1 when monitor is enabled
_no_monitor
1 when monitor is disabled from command line
_listen
1 when accepting connections is enabled
_disable_spyd
1 when ax25spyd support is disabled from command line
_mon_bin
1 when monitor filters binary characters
_monparms
command line arguments for 'listen' program
_maxchn
maximal number of channels
_last_act
time of last user activity (same format as the time() system
call).
These variables may be read using the lp_get_var() function defined above.
Furthermore there are two special functions defined for reading these
variables. These functions expect the name of the system variable without
the leading underscore.
char *lp_sconfig(const char *name)
Returns the value of the configuration variable as a string.
int lp_iconfig(const char *name)
Returns the value of the configuration variable as an integer.
The following system variables are defined for each channel:
_call
callsign for each channel
_cwit
connected with callsign
_cphy
physical connection to
_port
connected on which port
_state
connection status
There are also special functions for reading values of these variables:
int lp_chn_status(int chn)
Returns the status of a channel. The following status constants
are defined:
ST_DISC
channel disconnected
ST_DISP
disconnect in progress
ST_TIME
disconnecting for timeout
ST_CONN
channel connected
ST_CONP
connecting in progress
char *lp_chn_call(int chn)
Returns channel callsign.
char *lp_chn_cwit(int chn)
Returns the callsign of connected station.
char *lp_chn_cphy(int chn)
Returns the callsign of physicaly connected station (the first
connected station).
int lp_chn_port(int chn)
Returns the number of the port used for connection.
The last two functions enable changing the time of last users's response:
time_t lp_last_activity()
Returns the time of last activity of the user.
void lp_set_last_activity(time_t timeval)
Sets the last activity time.
6.5 Connection status
There are two special events reserved for obtaining the AX.25 connection
status. When an application wants to get the status of the connection on a
certain LinPac channel, it generates the EV_STAT_REQ event on this
channel. In response, LinPac generates the EV_STATUS event. The data field
of this event points to the ax25_status structure (see Chapter 7.2). When
there is no active connection on the channel, no EV_STATUS event is
generated.
6.6 Event usage examples
The following examples show how to use events for controlling LinPac. The
complete list of events can be found in the file events.txt.
6.6.1 Connecting to a remote station
When initiating the connection, the first step is to check that the
channel is free (i.e. it is not in use for another connection). The status
of a channel can be checked using the lp_chn_status() function (see
Chapter 6.4).
The second step is emiting the EV_CONN_LOC event on the appropriate
channel. The data field of the event contains a C string with the
destination address in the form port:callsign [digi [digi ...]].
The last step is to wait until the connection is established. For this the
function lp_wait_connect() can be used. An example piece of code follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
int chn = lp_channel();
if (lp_chn_status(chn) == ST_DISC)
{
char addr[30];
strcpy(addr, "kiss:OK0PAB OK0NMA");
lp_emit_event(chn, EV_CONN_LOC, 0, addr);
lp_wait_connect(chn, "OK0PAB");
/* ... connection established ... */
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.6.2 Using LinPac commands in programs
Any application may run LinPac commands by emitting the EV_DO_COMMAND
event. For example, to download a message from a BBS using the getmsg
command following code can be used:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
char cmd[30];
sprintf(cmd, "getmsg %i", message_number);
lp_emit_event(lp_channel(), EV_DO_COMMAND, 0, cmd);
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another option is to use the EV_WANT_RESULT event. The usage is similar to
the previous example, but the x field of the event has special meaning: as
a response to this event, LinPac will generate an EV_CMD_RESULT event with
the same x field and with the data field containing the result of the
command.
An example follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
char cmd[30];
int id = 0;
Event *ev;
sprintf(cmd, "getmsg %i", message_number);
lp_emit_event(lp_channel(), EV_WANT_RESULT, 1234, cmd);
while (id != 1234) /* wait for the command result */
{
lp_wait_event(lp_channel(), EV_CMD_RESULT);
ev = lp_awaited_event();
id = ev->x;
}
printf("The result is: %s\n", (char *)ev.data);
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 The application library interface
7.1 Constants
LPAPP_VERSION
the version of LinPac that the library came with
ST_xxxx
connection status constants (see Chapter 6.4)
7.2 Data structures
struct ax25_status
contains the AX.25 connection status:
typedef struct
{
char devname[8];
int state;
int vs, vr, va;
int t1, t2, t3, t1max, t2max, t3max;
int idle, idlemax;
int n2, n2max;
int rtt;
int window;
int paclen;
bool dama;
int sendq, recvq;
} ax25_status;
7.3 Functions
7.3.1 Uninterruptable versions of some system calls
The following functions work the same way as the original system calls,
but they are interrupt-safe. That is, they don't fail with errno ==
EAGAIN.
size_t safe_read(int fd, void *buf, size_t count);
size_t safe_write(int fd, const void *buf, size_t count);
char *safe_fgets(char *s, int size, FILE *stream);
int safe_fgetc(FILE *stream);
7.3.2 Basic communication functions
int lp_start_appl()
Starts communication with LinPac. A non-zero return value means
success; a zero value means that LinPac cannot be contacted
(probably because it's not running).
int lp_get_event(Event *ev)
Read an event from the queue. A non-zero return value means a
successful read; a zero value means that the event queue is empty.
The data field of the event structure must be initialized before
using this function (to NULL or to some buffer). This function
should not be used when automatic event processing is used.
int lp_emit_event(int chn, int type, int x, void *data)
Generate a new event. The arguments correspond to the fields in
the event structure. The return value is always 0.
void lp_wait_event(int chn, int type)
Wait until an event with the same chn and type values are
received.
void lp_wait_init(int chn, int type)
The same as lp_wait_event() but returns immediately. Waiting is
provided by following function lp_wait_realize().
void lp_wait_realize()
Realizes waiting initialized by lp_wait_init(). All the events
that arrived since the last lp_wait_init() call are ignored.
lp_wait_realize() may exit immediately if the event has already
arrived.
Event *lp_awaited_event()
After return from a call to lp_wait_event() or lp_wait_realize(),
this function returns the event that stopped the waiting.
Event *lp_copy_event(Event *dest, const Event *src)
Copy the event structure (using a deep copy).
void lp_discard_event(Event *ev)
Free the memory used by the data field of Event structure received
using lp_get_event().
void lp_clear_event_queue()
Remove all events from the event queue. This has no purpose when
automatic event processing is enabled.
void lp_end_appl()
Closes the connection to LinPac.
7.3.3 Automatic event handling functions
void lp_event_handling_on()
Enables automatic event handling. From this point onwards, each
event is automatically read from the queue, treated with an event
handler function (if defined) and then discarded.
void lp_event_handling_off()
Disables automatic event handling. Events must be read from the
queue using the lp_get_event() function.
void lp_set_event_handler(handler_type handler)
Defines the event handler function, a function with signature void
my_event_handler(Event *ev). The event handler is called
automatically each time an event is received, when automatic event
handling is enabled.
7.3.4 Environment functions
LinPac has its own environment for storing variables. Each application can
share and modify this environment using environment-related functions.
Each channel has its own environment. See Chapter 6.4 for a detailed
description and list of functions.
7.3.5 User functions
void lp_appl_result(const char *fmt, ...)
Set the final result of the application. This function generates
an EV_APP_RESULT event with the specified message string. The
argument format is the same as for printf().
void lp_statline(const char *fmt, ...)
Displays or changes the additional status line in the LinPac user
interface. Only one additional status line is displayed. This
function generates a EV_CHANGE_STLINE event with the x field (line
ID) containing the PID of the application. To display more than
one status line for the application, additional EV_CHANGE_STLINE
events must be generated manually.
void lp_remove_statline()
Removes the additional status line.
void lp_disable_screen()
Disables displaying data in the QSO window on application's
channel. The EV_DISABLE_SCREEN event is used to accomplish this.
void lp_enable_screen()
Enables displaying data in the QSO window. The EV_ENABLE_SCREEN
event is used to accomplish this.
void lp_wait_connect(int chn, const char *call)
Waits for a connection with the specified callsign on the
specified channel.
7.3.6 Tool functions
char *time_stamp(int utc)
Returns a pointer to a C string that contains the actual time. If
utc is 0, then local time is used; otherwise UTC time is used.
char *date_stamp(int utc)
Returns the date-string.
void replace_macros(int chn, char *s)
Replaces macro variables in the string (i.e. %xxx) with their
values. The %(command) macro is not replaced.
void get_port_name(int n)
Returns the name of the nth port in axports (starting from 0).
7.3.7 Application information functions
char *lp_version()
Returns the current LinPac version.
int lp_channel()
Returns the channel number on which the application was started.
Returns 0 when the application was not started using LinPac.
int lp_app_remote()
Returns a non-zero value if the application was started using a
remote command in LinPac (i.e. the application is communicating
with a remote user).
8 The shell interface
In addition to the C API described in the above chapters, LinPac also
provides a set of functions that allow programmers to create new LinPac
commands using bash shell scripts. While this set of functions is limited,
it is sufficient to enable quite sophisticated and complex commands to be
added to LinPac without requiring programming in C or C++.
8.1 Writing the script
The shell functions are all accessed through the lpapi command, which has
the following form:
lpapi <channel> [command] [arguments]
The specifics of the available commands are described in the following
sections.
The channel on which the script application is running is made available
to the script as the $LPCHN shell environment variable. The use of this
variable is demonstrated below.
8.1.1 Ensuring that LinPac is running
The first step in any LinPac shell command should be to ensure that LinPac
is running, such that subsequent use of the shell interface can proceed.
This is accomplished by calling the API as follows:
lpapi 0
This command will exit with a 0 result code if LinPac is running. Any
other result code indicates that LinPac is not running, in which case the
script should most likely echo an error message to the user and exit. As
usual, the result code can be determined by examining the special $?
value.
8.1.2 Accessing configuration and state
It is important that a shell script be able to determine the current
status of LinPac and retrieve configuration values. The API provides
several functions to enable this.
All of these functions return values that can be assigned to a shell
variable, and are used in the following manner (using "call" as an example
here):
MYVAR=`lpapi $LPCHN call`
The available functions are as follows:
call
Return the callsign for the specified channel.
cwit
Return the callsign of the station connected on the specified
channel.
port
Return the port of the station connected on the specified channel.
state
Return current status of the specified channel (as a number).
pname <number>
Return the name of port with the specified number.
get <variable>
Return the value of specified variable on the specified channel.
8.1.3 Executing commands
Accomplishing real work with the shell interface will usually require
calling into LinPac to execute other LinPac commands. This is achieved
using the do command, which is functionally equivalent to generating the
EV_DO_COMMAND event from the C API.
The do command has the following form:
lpapi <channel> do <command> [arguments]
However, since do is a reserved word in Bash shell scripts, it is
necessary to use Bash's eval command to invoke it as a LinPac function, as
follows:
eval lpapi <channel> do "<command> [arguments]"
IMPORTANT: The do command is asynchronous. That is, the shell command may
return before the command issued to LinPac has completed. A script will
need to account for this in considering subsequent actions.
8.1.4 Simple shell example
TBD
8.2 Creating the command
The steps to add the script to LinPac as a new command are essentially the
same as for an application written in C, described in Chapter 5.1 above.
That is:
1. Copy the script to the $LINPACDIR/bin directory, making sure that the
permissions allow execution.
2. Add the new command to the file $LINPACDIR/bin/commands as described
in the User Manual.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last update: 16 Feb 2020
References
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