GPSCAT(1)							GPSD Documentation							 GPSCAT(1)

NAME

       gpscat - dump the output from a GPS

SYNOPSIS

       gpscat [-s speed] [-p] [-t] [-D debuglevel] serial-port

DESCRIPTION

       gpscat is a simple program for logging and packetizing GPS data streams. It takes input from a specified file or serial device (presumed to
       have a GPS attached) and reports to standard output. The program runs until end of input or it is interrupted by ^C or other means. It does
       not terminate on a bad backet; this is intentional.

       In raw mode (the default) gpscat simply dumps its input to standard output. Nonprintable characters other than ASCII whitespace are
       rendered as hexadecimal string escapes.

       In packetizing mode, gpscat uses the same code as gpsd(8)'s packet sniffer to break the input into packets. Packets are reported one per
       line; line breaks in the packets themselves are escaped.

       This program is useful as a sanity checker when examining a new device. It can be used as a primitive NMEA logger, but beware that (a)
       interrupting it likely to cut off output in mid-sentence, and (b) to avoid displaying incomplete NMEA sentences right up next to shell
       prompts that often contain a $, raw mode always emits an extra final linefeed.

       Also, be aware that packetizing mode will produce useless results -- probably consuming the entirety of input and appearing to hang -- if
       it is fed data that is not a sequence of packets of one of the known types.

       The program accepts the following options:

       -p
	   Invoke packetizer mode.

       -s
	   Set the port's baud rate (and optionally its parity and stop bits) before reading. Argument should begin with one of the normal integer
	   baud rates (300, 1200, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, etc.). It may be followed by an optional suffix [NOE][12] to set parity (None, Even,
	   Odd) and stop bits (1 or 2).

       -t
	   Invoke packetizer mode, with the packet type and length (in parentheses) reported before a colon and space on each line.

       -D
	   In packetizer mode, enable progress messages from the packet getter. Probably only of interest to developers testing packet getter
	   changes.

       -h
	   Display program usage and exit.

       Specifying -s 4800N1 is frequently helpful with unknown devices.

SEE ALSO

       gpsd(8), gps(1), libgps(3), libgpsd(3), gpsfake(1).  gpsprof(1), gpsctl(1), gpsdctl(8), gpsmon(1).

AUTHOR

       Eric S. Raymond esr@thyrsus.com.

The GPSD Project						    16 Nov 2006 							 GPSCAT(1)