pyvtd

This repository aims to provide an easily maintainable Python interface for the interaction with the Virtual Test Drive Simulator.

For this a C++ based networking interface converts received packages into messages and shares them in form of SWIG wrappers to the Python interface.

This allows both convenient development in a pure Python environment while providing the ability to implement real time sensitive code directly in C++.

Overview

• Installation
  • Initial setup instructions for the Python module and preparation of the build process
• C++ interface compilation
  • How to build the Python interface
• C++ interface creation
  • pending instructions
• Python interface creation
  • pending instructions
• FAQ
  • A list of helpful common problems

Installation

This repository provides two installation methods. Namely, the static installation of python libraries into the system path with setup.py and the installation with exposing the Python library to the PYTHONPATH. However, currently only the latter is supported, which allows to update source code in the local directory without repeated re-installation of the Python library.

For the latter development oriented installation execute in the root directory of this repository

./init.sh

Note: This exposes the current working directory to your .profile and will extend your PYTHONPATH. In order for this to take effect the interactive session has to be refreshed. This can be done the easiest by simply rebooting.

Cpp Interface

Under ./resources/ find the script files {make,regen,setup,clean}.sh further described in the subsequent sections.

Before using the automatic generation framework, you need to add the following files receivable from Vires (see resources/.gitignore):

include/RDBHandler.cc
include/RDBHandler.hh
include/scpIcd.h
include/viRDBIcd.h

Note: It is necessary to execute the ./init.sh to expose necessary environment variables.

Usage

In order to build the SWIG python base module execute

./make.sh

This implicitly tests the module, for manual testing you can also execute after successful compilation and linkage (make.sh) the following command.

python2 -c import vtd.generated.base

You can clean any build artifacts (including generated python interface) using

./clean.sh

and for repetitive development cycles you can simply execute both clean.sh and make.sh in one command with

./regen.sh

Tests

After completed successful build process you can try executing the test Python scripts under ./tests.

Contributions

If you encounter challenges or you have general questions about the repository or you would like to see more detailed instructions for specfic sections, don't hesitate to create a pull request.

For code contributions from forks, use the Google C++ Style Guide for C++ based contributions and the common PEP for Python contributions. These, are however barely encouragements and the repository is partly based on code sections which adhered to different coding styles.

LICENSE

All rights are reserved. If you are interested in licensing details or having an open source license please let me know.