NAME

       gpscat - dump the output from a GPS

SYNOPSIS

       gpscat [-s speed] [-p] [-t] [-D debuglevel] file-or-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 packet; 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, Odd, Even) 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. Higher arguements to D produce more output.

       -h
           Display program usage and exit.

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

SEE ALSO

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

AUTHOR

       Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>.