Support for Lowrance, Magellan and Garmin ReceiversTopUsing GPSMan in graphical modeUsing GPSMan in Command-line Mode

Using GPSMan in Command-line Mode

The command-line mode can only be used in operating systems supporting command line arguments, namely Unix/Linux systems. For the time being only Garmin receivers are supported in commands requiring a receiver.

In graphical mode GPSMan is launched by invoking gpsman or gpsman.tcl with either no arguments or a single argument standing for the serial device, while in command-line mode there will always be 2 or more arguments. This is used to distinguish between the two situations.

The general form of invocation is (in the usual Unix notation)

gpsman [OPTIONS] COMMAND [COMMAND_ARGS]

The possible options are:

-dev DEVICE
gives the serial device path
-log
creates a log file of the serial communication named logfile in the GPSMan user directory
-rec Garmin | Lowrance | Magellan
changes the brand of the receiver (NOTE: at present will only work with Garmin); this option can be useful to override the options in the preferences file; cannot be used with the readput command, nor with the -prefs option, and cannot occur after the -prot option;
-prefs PREFSFILE
gives the path for an alternative preferences file (read after the user preferences file); cannot be used with the -rec option
-prot PROTOCOL
selects the protocol to be used for capturing the real-time log; cannot occur before the -rec option; the show protocols command can be used to find out which protocols are available

Options not related with COMMAND will be silently ignored.

GPSMan exits with either a 0 if the command was successfully executed, or a 1 if not. Some commands will write information to the standard output channel. Error messages can possibly be written to the standard error channel, but most of the errors will not be explained. In case of doubt the graphical mode should be used to see if there are problems with files or the receiver.

Available commands are:

is available
exits with 0
is connected
exits with 0 if a connection check with the receiver succeeds
show version
writes the GPSMan version to the standard output
show formats
writes table of file formats to the standard output
show protocols
writes list of protocols to the standard output
haslib LIBRARY
checks availability of library
getwrite IN-TYPES FORMAT [OUT-TYPES] PATH
transfers data from the receiver to a file
readput FORMAT [IN-TYPES] PATH [OUT-TYPES]
transfers data from a file to the receiver
getrtimelog PATH [INTERVAL]
gets the real-time log from the receiver and saves it to a file
translate IN-FORMAT [IN-TYPES] IN-PATH OUT-FORMAT [OUT-TYPES] OUT-PATH
translates from a file format to another
  • The is available Command
  • The is connected Command
  • The show version Command
  • The show formats Command
  • The show protocols Command
  • The haslib Command
  • The getwrite Command
  • The readput Command
  • The getrtimelog Command
  • The translate Command

  • GPSMan User Manual
    ©Miguel Filgueiras, mig_at_ncc.up.pt, DCC-FC & LIACC, Universidade do Porto, 2003

    Support for Lowrance, Magellan and Garmin ReceiversTopUsing GPSMan in graphical modeUsing GPSMan in Command-line Mode