starfeeder 0.2.6

Purpose

Manages radiofrequency identification (RFID) readers and weighing balances, and talks to a Whisker client (http://www.whiskercontrol.com/).

Author/licensing

By Rudolf Cardinal. Copyright © 2015 Rudolf Cardinal. See LICENSE.txt.

Single-folder binary distribution

Unzip the distributed file and double-click the starfeeder program. That’s it.

Linux source installation

End users should opt for the single-folder binary distribution instead.

sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip  # install Python with pip
python3 -m virtualenv /PATH/TO/MY/NEW/VIRTUALENV  # make a virtualenv
source /PATH/TO/MY/NEW/VIRTUALENV/bin/activate  # activate the virtualenv

# pip install starfeeder --process-dependency-links  # install from PyPI -- NOT YET IMPLEMENTED

cd /MY/WORKING/DIR
git clone https://egret.psychol.cam.ac.uk/git/starfeeder  # Fetch code. Private for now.
pip install -e .  # Install from working directory into virtualenv.

/PATH/TO/MY/NEW/VIRTUALENV/bin/starfeeder

Windows source installation

Deprecated, as it’s complex.

Changelog

v0.1.2 (2015-12-23)

• Initial release.

• Hardware tested via Windows XP, Windows 10, and Ubuntu 14.04.

v0.1.3 (2015-12-26)

• Ugly moveToThread() hack fixed by declaring QTimer(self) rather than QTimer().

• More general updates to declare parents of QObject objects, except in GUI code where it just clutters things up needlessly. Note that QLayout.addWidget(), QLayout.addLayout(), and QWidget.setLayout() all take ownership.

• Bugfix related to using lambdas as slots (PySide causes a segmentation fault on exit; https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/PYSIDE-88).

• Launch PDF manual as help.

• Retested with hardware on Windows XP and Linux.

v0.1.4 (2015-12-26)

• callback_id set by GUI, not by derived classes of SerialOwner

v0.1.5 (2016-02-27)

• bugfix to BaseWindow.on_rfid_state()

v0.2.0 (2016-04-07)

• GUI log window, for PyInstaller environments.

• Uses Whisker Python library.

• Switch to Arrow datetimes internally.

• Bugfix in error handling when trying to open non-existent serial ports.

v0.2.3 (2016-04-19) v0.2.4 (2016-04-19)

• Bugfix.

v0.2.5

• Internal changes only?

v0.2.6 (2016-11-24)

• Python type hints.

• NOTE that to install Python 3.4 (required for this version of PySide) under Ubuntu 16.10, you need to: - download Python 3.4.4 source, then:

  $ tar xvf Python-3.4.4.tgz
  $ cd Python-3.4.4
  $ configure --enable-shared
  $ make
  $ sudo make install
  
      # now unbreak wrong symlink and replace with old:
  $ sudo rm /usr/bin/python3  # "make install" made this point to python3.4
  $ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3.5 /usr/bin/python3
  
      # now set up library links
  $ sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libpython3.4m.so.1.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpython3.4m.so.1.0
  
      # this should now work:
  $ python3.4

• Upgraded from pyserial 3.0.1 to 3.2.1 … also allows the use of Linux pseudoterminals for testing; http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34831131

• Passwords obscured in debug-level database URLs.

• Top-level exception tracebacks go to log (like all others), not to print() using traceback.print_exc().

• BalanceController could send ‘ICRNone’, which is wrong; the frequency 10 Hz was offered in the dialogue, but should have been 12. Validity check added.

• Bug workaround: PROBLEM - sometimes, WeightWhiskerTask.on_mass() received something that was not a MassEvent. Not sure why (it doesn’t look like anything else is ever sent); could this be a PySide signals bug?

  ATTEMPT 1 - Workaround is to verify type on receipt (and complain loudly if wrong but ignore/continue). - … no; irremediable bug in PySide (see development notes); it fails to keep references to signal parameters, so sometimes they go AWOL.

  ATTEMPT 2 - Switched from PySide to PyQt5, and thus GPLv3 licensing. - Generally, this seems much better. - Even then, apparent corruption in “bytes” object passed from SerialController.process_data() -> SerialController.line_received -> [change thread] -> RfidController.on_receive Sometimes the received bytes object is b’’, not what was sent. PyQt does some sort of autoconversion to C++ objects; see http://pyqt.sourceforge.net/Docs/PyQt5/signals_slots.html ; and the problem appears to go away by using an encapsulating Python object… Not ideal! Does it also affect str? No, str seems OK. BUG REPRODUCED RELIABLY in pyqt5_signal_with_bytes.py. Reported to PyQt mailing list on 2016-12-01. SO FOR NOW: AVOID bytes OBJECTS IN PyQt5 SIGNALS.

PENDING

• 2017-03-21: thinking back to ClearCommError() failure, via inWaiting() function, called by SerialReader.start()… - See also https://github.com/pyserial/pyserial/blob/master/serial/threaded/__init__.py#L196